


Water Me

by sual



Category: Dredd (2012), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - High School, Awkward Flirting, Background Relationships, Blow Jobs, Bullying, Child Neglect, Come Eating, Comeplay, Crushes, Daddy Kink, Eventual Relationships, Finger Sucking, First Kiss, First Time for Everything Fest, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Hux and Techie are brothers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inexperience kink, Kylo Ren and Rey Are Related, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Masturbation, Matt is NOT Kylo Ren, Pining, Premature Ejaculation, Rimming, Techienician, Virginity Kink, jedistormpilot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-20 18:14:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9504731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sual/pseuds/sual
Summary: Techie's heard of lots of kids with crushes on their teachers. Crushes on their high school janitor...not so much.Tags will be added!





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back at it with the Techienician again! So, this premise has been rattling around my head for a while, not 100% sure where it's going to go yet but I wanted to get this first chapter out anyway. 
> 
> In this story, Techie is 18 and Matt is 26. If you're not into age difference, you probably shouldn't read this fic. Obviously I don't condone high school kids dating their janitors in real life. Tags will be added as we go so keep an eye on them I guess? 
> 
> Feedback and thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

_He won’t make love to me now_  
_Not now I’ve set the fee_  
_He said it’s too much in pound_  
_I guess I’m stuck with me._

_He told me I was so small_  
_I told him water me_  
_I promise I can grow tall_  
_When making love is free._

*

 

Really, it’s his own fault, Techie thinks ruefully; he knows better by now than to use the boy’s bathrooms on the second floor.

Whoever had designed a high school restroom with two exits had clearly never been bullied. The room has become a headquarters of sorts for Bala-Tik and his ominously named Guavian Death gang, an assortment of burly kids kicked off their sports teams and pot dealers with grades dangling by a thread; with doors on either end, the bathroom provides an easy escape should teachers come snooping. All Techie had wanted was to put his eye drops in between classes, but the disabled toilet had been occupied, and judging by the two giggly voices muffled behind the door it wouldn’t be free any time soon.

Now, instead, he finds himself pinned to the urine-stained floor of the boy’s bathroom, squirming under the weight of Bala-Tik while another two chortling thugs he never bothered to learn the names of hold his arms and legs immobile.

“Stay _still_ ,” Bala-Tik spits down at him, uncapped sharpie hovering threateningly above Techie’s forehead, “already fucked up the one on your neck with your squirming.”

From what he can gather of their cavemen grunts, Techie thinks the sharpie tattoo on his neck says “Mama”; for whatever reason this is a frequent topic of abuse the Guavians have latched on to, something about his mother being a gold-digger (they’re not _wrong_ , exactly – he’d pried out of Armitage at great length that Madeline had been an escort Brendol had left Maratelle for – but he’s not about to confirm that to the student body at large). He scrunches his eyes shut and keeps still as the cold tip of the sharpie scrawls too-hard against his forehead. _Just six more months_ , he tells himself; just six months and he’ll graduate and he’ll never have to see these idiots again.

“Why ‘male’?” Unkar Plutt asks from the direction of the sinks.

“How else is anyone gonna know he’s a boy with that girly hair?” Bala-Tik sneers, to the raucous laughter of his cronies. Techie cracks an eye open to watch as he reaches for a different colour pen-

“What the _FUCK_ do you little _shits_ think you’re doing?!” a familiar voice bellows.

_Oh no._

The Guavians scarper out of the opposite door, predictably, cackling as they go, too fast and too many of them to be caught, while Techie lies there in the middle of the bathroom floor wishing it would swallow him up whole. _Not like this,_ he thinks miserably, _don’t let him see me like this_.

From somewhere above him, Matt curses under his breath. The school janitor steps into his blurry field of view, one hand held out.

“You okay, kid?” Matt sighs. Techie nods weakly and takes the proffered hand – _big, so big and warm and strong_ – to pull himself up to sitting, reaching for the fuzzy black shape of his glasses nearby. He keeps his face down, letting his long red hair fall in front of him to try and hide the furious blush he can feel warming his skin. “They hurt you at all?”

“N-no,” Techie mumbles. As soon as he’s on his feet, he quickly turns away to the sinks, flicking a tap on with trembling fingers to try and rub away the sharpie scrawled onto his forehead. The blond janitor watches in silence, frowning as Techie scrubs at his skin fruitlessly, the water failing to even smudge the spidery black letters. _Just go away already, leave me alone, don’t see me like this, please, don’t look, just go_ -

A firm hand snatches at Techie’s wrist, pulling it away from his face.

His breath hitches loudly in the silence of the bathroom. For all he’s been trying to avoid looking directly at Matt in the hope that this is all some horrible dream, he turns to look up at the janitor now, and what a sight he must be, skin rubbed red and hair sticking up and stupid, thick glasses magnifying his eyes, disproportionately big and bug-like.

But Matt only frowns back down at him with an unreadable expression, before sighing through his nose. “Sharpie, huh?” he murmurs eventually. He tugs on Techie’s wrist gently, pulling him towards the exit opposite to the ones the Guavians made their escape through. “C’mon. Nurse Anderson has some stuff that’ll get that off.”

Techie follows mutely, the steady grip of Matt’s fingers around his wrist allowing no room for argument. He keeps his eyes to the floor as Matt leads him along the school hallways like a lost puppy, miserably wondering how exactly one is supposed to convey _I’ve had a gigantic crush on you since I was fifteen, this is the worst way for you to finally notice me, please just let me die right now_ without saying as much. The one saving grace of this is that class is still in session and the halls are empty of witnesses to his shame.

He chances a glance upwards at Matt’s broad shoulders. Techie’s heard of kids with crushes on their teachers. Hell, he’s pretty sure that his older brother slept with one or two, though Armitage won’t say and he’s afraid to ask Kylo to confirm or deny.

Crushing on the school janitor, though…not so much.

Matt had turned up at New Republic High School three years ago as part of a community service program. The seniors at the time insisted that he’d spent a while in prison, but Principal Organa had nonetheless offered him a job when his service had ended. Techie remembers very clearly (and frequently, in bed, at night) the first time he saw Matt – sweat-drenched in the summer sun, kneeling down in the flower beds by the sports field, tugging up the bottom of his shirt to mop at his brow and revealing taut abs underneath the highlighter orange of his court-mandated uniform.

Honestly, Techie can’t understand why the other students don’t see it; instead, they laugh at the man behind his back, compete with each other to see who can set off Matt’s famous temper the most explosively, snort derisively at his shaggy blond hair and ill-fitting jumpsuit and unfashionable glasses.

“Anderson!” Matt yells, rapping his knuckles against the nurse’s office door. “You in there?” Still he keeps his grip on Techie’s wrist, and it’s…actually kind of nice, if Techie ignores how they got here. Warm. Safe. The janitor pushes the door open slightly, peering through it to find the office empty.

“Damn…she must be on her coffee break,” he grumbles to himself. But then he brightens, finally turning to Techie again. “No worries, I know where she keeps the alcohol wipes.” Matt tugs on his wrist again to draw him into the office before nudging Techie towards the bed. “You just sit, okay?”

“O…okay,” the teenager mumbles, shuffling over to the bed he’s spent hours of his high school career languishing in; the Hux brothers were never the healthiest of children, to Brendol’s constant disappointment. He perches daintily on the edge, watching Matt rifle through a drawer with abandon.

“Aha!” Matt says triumphantly, brandishing a packet of alcohol wipes.

But instead of handing them over, he pulls one out and steps close enough that Techie can smell his deodorant. With a look of intense concentration, he takes Techie’s jaw very gently in one hand to keep him still, and starts to dab slowly and carefully at the ‘male’ scrawled on his forehead.

It’s…it’s _dizzying_ , having Matt so close after years of pining, having his full and undivided attention like this. Techie belatedly realizes that this may be due to not breathing for the last thirty seconds. He takes a shuddering breath, watching the shiny pink of Matt’s tongue peeking out of his plush lips in concentration; his fingers dig into the thin mattress of the nurse’s bed to stop himself from launching forward to try and coax Matt’s tongue further out with his own mouth.

“There, easy,” Matt murmurs, too soon, much too soon, drawing back with a small, satisfied smile, and he can’t go, not now, not now he’s so close-

“Th-they, um- they g-got my neck, too!” Techie says quickly, releasing his iron grip on the mattress to comb his hair over one shoulder so Matt can see. The janitor scowls at the sight of it, muttering something about _damn teenagers_ under his breath, but he dutifully pulls a fresh wipe out of the packet to start smoothing the half-hearted tattoo away. He keeps one hand on Techie’s jaw to hold him still again – the teenager wonders if he can feel Techie biting his cheek to swallow a whimper at the cool, firm strokes of the wet cloth against the thin skin of his neck, if he even notices the shallow breaths he’s struggling to keep quiet through his nose or the fluttering of his allergy-raw eyelids behind his glasses.

“Damn, this one’s not coming off so well…” Matt mutters, more to himself than anything, tugging a few more wipes from the pack free. Techie quietly hopes it never comes off, if it means Matt so close like this, and maybe this wasn’t such a bad way for the janitor to finally notice him after all (but _fuck_ if he doesn’t want him to lean forward and replace the cool wipes with the heat of his mouth and tongue instead). The senior can feel himself getting hard in his pants, and damn Armitage for insisting he couldn’t go wrong with skinny jeans when they hide absolutely nothing; he attempts to not-so-subtly squeeze his thighs together, but with the tickle of Matt’s warm breath against his ear it does nothing to help.

“Nearly got it,” Matt says reassuringly, the total opposite of what Techie wants to hear. His breath hitches again in a panic – think, _think_ , make Matt stay, he can’t go, what would Armitage do-

From the corner of his eye he sees Matt withdrawing his hands.

Techie does the first thing that he thinks of.

Matt’s eyes widen, all the breath leaving the older man in one go, and the senior goes cold as his brain catches up with his body; he has one of Matt’s wrists in a vice-like grip…and two of the fingers on the hand attached to it in his mouth. For a tense moment, Techie just blinks up at the janitor, as confused and shocked with himself as Matt is. He has, almost certainly, fucked this up.

But then a small voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like his older brother whispers: _nowhere to go but down_.

Techie curls his tongue wetly around the two fingers in his mouth, forcing himself to lock eyes with the older man. His skin tastes salty, faintly bitter and medicinal from the alcohol wipes; Techie sighs around them, letting his mouth fall open a little. Matt’s wide-eyed gaze drops down to the sight, as the senior licks kitten-like at the pads of fingers before coaxing them back in and suckling with a quiet hum.

The janitor’s breath comes heavily, loud in the small office with just the two of them, brown eyes nearly black, cheeks flushed and lips parted. Techie has never felt so victorious in his entire life. Bolstered by the reaction, he uses his grip on Matt’s wrist to pull his hand higher, trailing the tip of his tongue from spit-slick fingers down to the sensitive skin of his palm, laying it flat there before licking back upwards in a slow drag to take two digits between his lips again and sucking hard.

Matt gasps. Just that small response is enough to make Techie moan around his fingers; he wants to look down, wants to see if Matt is as hard as he is, but he can’t tear his gaze from the rapturous way the older man is watching him.

Then, the sharp clicks of heels in the hallway, and with only seconds to spare Matt wrenches himself away from Techie and to the other side of the room.

“Matt, I told you a _thousand times_ , you’re not allowed to be in here when I’m not-“ Nurse Anderson pauses in the doorway at the sight of Techie on the bed, flushed and sweating nervously, pillow fisted awkwardly in his lap to try and hide the erection straining uncomfortably against his jeans.

She gives him an exasperated look. “Techie, _again_?” she says disbelievingly. “I’ll call your dad’s driver to come pick you up,” Anderson sighs, not even bothering to take his temperature and going straight for her phonebook.

“Th…thank you?” Techie squeaks, amazed that he seems to be getting away with this. Perhaps being in here every other week since he started high school is actually going to pay off after all. For his part, Matt is trying to shuffle his way out of the room as quietly as he can, both hands in his jumpsuit’s pockets trying to discreetly hide his- fuck, Techie knows what he’s going to be thinking about for the next month, wondering for a moment if he really _is_ sick and delirious because Matt is _big_.

“Did you need something, Matt?” Anderson asks as she lets the phone ring.

“ _Nope_!” he calls behind him, sprinting out of the room as if shot.

“Weirdo,” the nurse mutters to herself, “oh! Hi, is that Mr. Mitaka? Yeah, hi, it’s nurse Anderson from New Republic High…again…“ Techie tunes out her conversation with Brendol’s driver, instead desperately trying to calm himself down and will his hard-on away.

It’s surprisingly easy given the sudden dread that washes over him. He’d just- he’d just _grabbed_ Matt’s hand without asking, had he…was that assault? What if Matt hated it? Would he tell on him? Would Techie be in trouble? Expelled? He feels, suddenly, terribly dizzy, and not just from the blood racing away from his dick. Anderson is looking at him funny from the corner of her eye; she makes a _lie down_ gesture with the hand not holding the phone. He feels like maybe he might have turned whiter than usual, following her direction and curling up on the thin cot gratefully.

But Matt hadn’t…Matt hadn’t pushed him _away_ , or even pulled his hand back. He was strong, Techie’s weak grip wouldn’t have stopped him. And he had been so _hard_ in his jumpsuit-

Techie squeezes his eyes shut and resolves not to pursue that line of thought until later, for fear of getting turned on again himself. It takes another twenty minutes before Mitaka arrives. He’s always been kind and patient with Techie (perhaps because he’s the only member of the Hux family that’s never shouted at the poor man). He melts gratefully into the back seat of Mitaka’s car. The drive back to Peach Trees passes in relative silence.

He sneezes as soon as he gets home, as usual, eyes starting to burn the moment he steps foot inside.

“Mama?” Techie calls softly. One of her wretched dogs yaps at him, but no response from Madeline herself. The teenager trails into the living room of the mansion to find her, predictably, in her usual spot passed out on the huge couch in front of the TV, an empty bottle of something he probably doesn’t want to know about on the coffee table and the dogs she refuses to get rid of (despite all of Techie’s violent allergies) asleep around her. With a sigh, he props her onto her side in case she throws up and rearranges her blanket.

He could probably do with a nap himself; filial duties complete, he wanders upstairs and locks the door to his dark room, pulling off everything to lie naked in bed. Maybe if Brendol is home late, he’ll be able to skype with Armitage tonight. He and Kylo will know what to make of today – they’re both ten years older than him, and only two years older than Matt, they’ll know, they’ll understand.

For now, he tugs his collection of blankets and pillows on top of himself. He doesn’t really need three duvets, but he likes the weight of them, likes to pretend it’s someone (usually Matt) lying on top of him; bottom lip between his teeth, he pulls a pillow under his hips and spreads his legs, grinding his slowly hardening cock against it like he used to when he first figured out masturbation. Maybe if Nurse Anderson hadn’t interrupted them. Maybe if Matt had spun him around and bent him over the small office bed, used the same fingers (so big, so thick in his mouth) Techie had drooled over to work him open; overheated under his heavy pile of duvets, Techie groans, humping his pillow desperately and wishing it was Matt thrusting into him, pushing him into the motion, wishing Matt was whispering into his ear, _what were you thinking, dirty little thing, sucking my fingers like that,_ wishing that he’d dropped to his knees in the nurse’s office right then and there to choke on something much better than the older man’s hand, much bigger, and he _saw_ it, the hard line of Matt’s dick in his pants, _he did that_ -

Techie comes soundlessly into his pillow, eyes squeezed tightly shut, dizzy, so dizzy.

Please, fuck, let Armitage know what to do.

 

*


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided to cut this chapter in half, because the second part of it just isn't playing ball right now and needs to be beaten into submission, but you guys gave me so many lovely comments on the first chapter that I didn't want to leave you hanging too long! Get ready for the angst...don't worry, we'll get to the filthy, filthy smut eventually.
> 
> Also, credit goes to [robinasnyder](http://archiveofourown.org/users/robinasnyder/pseuds/robinasnyder) for first having Techie's name be "Technical Hux", because they're so right, it _does_ match Armitage.

As it turns out, Techie needn’t have worried.

A week later, no summons have come from Principal Organa for him to see her in her office, no concerned conversations have happened with Nurse Anderson – by all appearances, Matt seems to have kept the incident between them to himself. Once or twice, he’s caught the janitor staring at him (always from a safe distance: the opposite end of a hallway, the other side of the cafeteria), but each time, the older man flushes and quickly turns away, refusing to meet Techie’s eyes. It's...confusing, to say the least.

As it also turns out, Techie doesn’t get the chance to video chat with Armitage, but that’s disappointing on an entirely different and more familiar level. Brendol has been on the warpath, and Techie doesn’t dare risk more than furtive text messages and hurriedly typed skype updates with his disowned older brother. Communicating is difficult enough when they live in different time-zones without their father irritably prowling around the house in the evenings, too.

He’s pondering whether to text Armitage now as he sits on the bleachers by the sports field. Usually he spends his lunch hiding in the computer labs – or, if he gets caught eating in there one too many times by Mr. Artoo and Mr. Threepio, hiding furtively in a corner of the cafeteria – but it’s a nice day, and the one day of the week that his lunch lines up with Rey’s. He figures he might as well make the most of the great outdoors before hayfever season starts in earnest and he has a second set of allergies to contend with.

A box of pizza slaps down on the bench next to him, startling him from his thoughts.

“Whaddup, brother!” Rey crows, throwing herself down next to Techie. She takes two slices at once from the box, one in each hand, before nudging it towards him with a knee.

“We’re not related,” Techie says mildly, helping himself. “Well. Yet, anyway. Kylo and Tidge aren’t getting married until December, I told you.”

“So you _say_ ,” the younger girl says suspiciously around a mouthful of cheese. She points accusingly at Techie with one of her limp slices of pizza. “Don’t believe a damn word out of Kylo’s mouth, he’ll send the Skywalker-Organa-Solos invitations a month after the wedding’s already happened and blame it on the mailman, I know it.”

“I’ll make sure they don’t elope without you,” Techie replies solemnly, “I know how much you want to be the flower girl.”

Rey grins, kicking her feet out. “Nope, that’s you. I’m gonna be the best man.”

Kylo’s cousin is a grade below Techie. They don’t have a whole lot in common, other than their soon-to-be-wedded relatives, but his pool of friends mainly consists of strangers on MMORPGs he’s never met in real life, so he appreciates Rey hanging out with him once a week all the same. Her closest friend, Finn, is currently on the football pitch in front of them doing defence drills with the eleventh grade team, and she watches the junior as they eat their pizza in companionable silence.

Techie glances at his phone again and does some quick math in his head; around 6PM in Imperial City’s time-zone, so Armitage is probably on his way home from work. If he texts him now, he won’t get a reply for a few hours yet, but maybe…

“Hey, um…Rey?” Techie begins quietly. She makes a muffled questioning noise through a mouth full of pizza, but keeps her eyes trained on Finn down below. “H-have you ever, like…um…wanted to date someone o-older than you?”

Rey freezes at that, unexpectedly, head twisting towards him. “What, like Poe?” she snaps, a little more harshly than necessary.

Techie blinks. He gets the feeling that there’s probably something here that he’s missing, but he’s got his own answers to look for right now. “What? No, no, I don’t mean like- like a grade or two older, I mean like…a _teacher_ older. Or…or something.”

Rey relaxes, mouth widening into a Kylo-reminiscent smirk. “Technical Hux, are you trying to tell me you have a crush on Mr. Kenobi?” she teases, sing-song.

“ _Gross_ , no!” Techie squawks, shoving at her with his shoulder. “Not _that_ old!”

“Well how old are we talking?” Rey says, moving on to her fourth slice of pizza. “Like, Miss Erso old? Or Mr. Imwe old? Because let me tell you, that is a dead end, that dude has been married to Mr. Malbus for years. It’s disgustingly sweet.”

Techie doesn’t get a chance to respond to that.

What he _does_ get is a sudden and unexpected football to the face.

He finds himself on his back blinking up at the clear blue sky, and his only thought before the surprise fades and the pain sets in is _this is what I get for going outside_.

“Oh god!! Oh my god, I’m so sorry! Are you okay??” a familiar voice yells from down below, followed quickly by Finn bounding up the bleachers and looking down at Techie in a panic.

“It’s…it’s fine,” Techie groans, righting himself. He’s had dodgeballs to the face plenty of times before, and this is…surprisingly not that bad in comparison? Rey is looking at him and wincing, though, hissing through her teeth, which can’t be a good sign. “…What? Am I bleeding?”

“Glasses, dude,” she says apologetically. Techie paws at his face, and…pulls away his thick glasses in two pieces, the black plastic of the bridge split neatly down the middle. He tries to balance them by the arms on his ears so he can peer up at Finn, only for them to fall into his lap almost immediately.

“Shit, they must have taken all the impact,” Finn says, hopping from foot to foot anxiously. “Do you have spares? Can I, like, get them for you from your locker or something? Fuck, do you need Nurse Anderson?”

“No, no, I’m okay,” Techie sighs, squinting down at the two blurry halves of his glasses. “I, um, don’t have my spares at school though…do you think they’ve got any tape in the art department or something? ”

“Oh! I got it!” Finn says brightly, holding out a hand for Techie to take. “Here, let me help you down the stairs, I know where we can find tape.” He doesn’t really need Finn’s help – everything’s blurry, not dark – but it seems to assuage the junior’s guilt, so he lets himself be led by the shorter teenager back into the main building, taking a winding route between the science labs.

They come to an abrupt halt two corridors away from the art department. He doesn’t realize where Finn has taken him until it’s too late to run.

“Mr. Matt!!” Finn calls, pounding a fist on the door to the janitor’s room. The senior’s blood runs cold at the name. A muffled grumble comes from inside the room – Techie can just about make out the shape of someone standing up through the frosted glass window of the door. _Fuck._

“I gotta head back to practice, but Matt’s got duct tape for sure, okay?” Finn says cheerily, already jogging away and somehow missing the look of horror on the older teenager’s face. No, no, _no, traitor-_ “Sorry about the glasses again!” he calls over his shoulder, before disappearing around a corner.

The door opens. Matt’s blurry face blinks back at him.

“ _Uh_ ,” the janitor says.

“U-um- I-…aah,” Techie stutters back just as eloquently. He considers fleeing, but knowing his luck (and his current lack of vision) he’ll trip and face plant while still in Matt’s line of sight, so instead he gives up all hope and dignity, shoving the two pieces of his glasses forward with his eyes fixed firmly on his feet. “…D-duct tape?”

For a long, awkward moment, Matt is completely silent. Techie doesn’t dare to look up, heart-hammering in his ribcage. But then, eventually, the two halves are gently plucked from his hands, and the taller man steps back into his utility-room-slash-office.

“Come in, I guess,” Matt says stiffly. Techie shuffles in after him, letting the door close behind them as the janitor sits down on a rickety computer chair at a workbench to one side of the room. The blond hooks a foot around a stool shoved underneath the bench, dragging it out with a squeal against the linoleum floor and pushing it towards Techie. His room is small and overcrowded, every wall lined with shelves creaking with tins of paint, toolboxes, gardening equipment, cleaning supplies, and boxes of screws and pins and lightbulbs – with his wide shoulders and towering 6-foot-something frame, Matt makes the room look even smaller, cramped and seated awkwardly at his table like a giant trying to use children-sized things.

Techie settles himself on the offered stool, watching as Matt pulls a roll of duct tape and some scissors out of a drawer. With practiced hands that lead Techie to wonder how often the janitor does this kind of thing for the bespectacled of New Republic High, he starts to cut a piece of tape into thin strips.

In the quiet of the tiny room, Matt doesn’t speak, gaze resolutely on the workbench in front of him.

It’s unbearable.

“I-!” Techie starts – much too loudly – without really knowing what he’s going to say. Matt’s big hands still their work. He doesn’t turn around. “I-I, um…I nnn…n-never ssaid t-thank you,” Techie forces out. “F-for getting the…the sharpie off. S-so, um…”

Even without his glasses and in the dim lighting of the room, the sudden, intense blush that creeps up the back of Matt’s neck over the collar of his jumpsuit is easy to see, a bright pink that clashes horribly with his sandy hair. “You’re welcome,” Matt grunts. He takes Techie’s glasses and lines them up on the bench in front of him, before reaching for one of his strips of tape and carefully starting to loop it around the plastic bridge.

“I, um…I’m Techie,” the teenager says awkwardly. Out of habit, he picks up the roll of duct tape the janitor has been using from Matt’s workbench to have something to nervously fiddle with.

“I know,” Matt says gruffly.

Techie blinks, taken off guard. “You…you d-do?”

At that, Matt pauses in his work again, head turning ever so slightly towards the student. Still refusing to meet the teenager’s questioning gaze. “You’re Hux’s baby brother.”

“Wh…how do you…?”

“He was in the grade above me at the Academy. He scared the shit out of me,” Matt says tightly. His lips thin, fist clenching on the table. He’s silent a moment more, before he adds in a low mutter under his breath, almost inaudible, “now you’re here to scare the shit out of me too, I guess.”

Techie sucks in a sharp breath, eyes widening – the roll of tape falls from his loose fingers, thudding once on the floor before rolling underneath the desk.

“Ah- _shit_! S-sorry, I’ll just-, _”_ He drops to his knees automatically, thinking only _stupid, clumsy, dummy, idiot_ on a miserable loop, crawling underneath the workbench to retrieve the roll.

It’s only after he’s picked it up that he realizes the position he’s in – on hands and knees, between Matt’s thighs spread under the desk and face inches away from the other’s crotch while the janitor looks down at him wide-eyed and frozen in place and _how the fuck has he managed to do this again?_ Still as a graveyard, they stare at each other in awkward horror.

Until this time – _this_ time, Matt moves.

Like Techie is an animal he might spook away, he moves slowly, slowly, dragging the taped up glasses from the bench and holding them carefully in both hands; Techie goes cross-eyed as he follows the movement of them nearer and nearer to his face, until he can’t see the frames and can only see Matt, clear again, as the older man delicately hooks them over his ears with a whisper of a brush of fingers against skin. Matt snatches his hands back like Techie is a trap that might snap and close on him at any moment, looking down at the student with a heady mixture of anticipation and anxiety playing over his features.

 _Well then_. Drawing his dry bottom lip between his teeth, the teenager moves in return, just as carefully, lifting his hands from the floor to tentatively rest them on Matt’s kneecaps. The janitor’s breath catches, before coming back noisier than before, pulling air shakily through his mouth; Techie’s palms slip downwards to the inside of his knees, push a few inches further into the territory of Matt’s inner thighs, and the older man’s legs spread a little wider, welcoming, whether consciously or not. Backwards and forwards, with the tips of his fingers Techie starts to rub purposeful little circles into the thick muscles underneath his hands; blue eyes still looking up into Matt’s brown ones, he shuffles a little closer on his knees, hands travelling a little further inwards.

Matt makes an odd noise in his throat when Techie’s fingers reach the tender upper reaches of his thighs, something halfway between a groan and a whimper, strangled before it can fully form. He’s so close now to the slowly growing bulge between the older man’s legs, to everything he’s spent the last week obsessing over under the covers at night, so close he could duck his head and lick the fabric – Techie shuts his mouth for fear of drooling, looking down coyly at the zipper of Matt’s jumpsuit.

He closes the gap between his hands on each thigh, meeting in the middle and _fuck_ , that’s Matt’s cock jumping under the feather-light press of his fingertips, twitching and filling out _just for him_ , their skin separated only by a few measly layers of cotton-

Someone slams their locker shut outside.

Matt startles, head snapping fearfully to the frosted glass of his door, body wound tight like a spring. The spell is broken; he turns back to Techie and something agonized and hurt passes over the janitor’s face – but before Techie can fully ponder the expression, it twists again into something infinitely more familiar, a rage he’s only ever seen directed at other students.

The blond’s big hands fist in Techie’s mustard yellow sweatshirt, dragging him roughly upwards and slamming him up against the shelves in one violent motion.

“Who put you up to this?” Matt snarls, suddenly _there_ and furious in Techie’s face, eyes promising murder.

Winded and shocked, Techie can only wheeze in response. “W-what??”

“Was it one of those little Guavian fucks? Huh? Do you think this is fucking funny, jailbait?!” The janitor punctuates this with another shake of Techie’s shoulders, rattling the contents of the shelf behind him. “They want to see me in prison again, is that it?!”

“Jailba- _I’m eighteen_!” Techie at least manages to retort this with some indignation, despite the frightened tears gathering in his eyes against his will, a pavlovian response to raised voices cultivated from years of screaming and shouting.

“Blackmail, then!” Matt spits. “You think I’m an idiot?! What was the plan, huh? Get my pants down and then your football-team friend comes running in here with a camera?! Tch, which is it – getting me fired, or asking for money?”

“ _Neither!_ There’s no- there’s no p-plan!” Techie cries, struggling against Matt’s iron grip. “Fff- my dad has a fucking _driver_ to pick me up, why would I need your money?? Let _go_!”

“Then what the hell is your angle here, kid?” Matt hisses, fingers twisted much too tight in Techie’s sweatshirt, something desperate and wild in his expression. “Cute little twinks don’t just throw themselves at me, okay, so what the fuck is it you want?! You think it’s fun to tease people? Is that it!?”

Techie’s not sure what hurts more: the shelves digging painfully into his back, the pull of his collar against his neck, or the accusations Matt throws like daggers, caught in the eye of a storm he’s always known about, but never truly experienced. Perhaps what’s worst of all is that he can feel himself about to start crying for real, the same full-frontal ugly sobbing that comes every time he endures his father’s belittling fury. The first tear pulls loose to roll down his cheek, he can’t let Matt see it, he _can’t_ -

The teenager lurches forward in the janitor’s grip and kisses him.

For a glorious split-second, Techie tastes the little gasp that escapes Matt’s mouth, feels the plush lips he’s dreamed of sucking and nipping for years parting between his own. In the next, his own trembling, panicked breath, the tears falling hot and fast down his skin; he pulls back first.

Matt blinks down at his tear-streaked face, bewildered, and Techie hisses, “ _fuck you_.”

Smacking the janitor’s hands away from him, the student turns away to wrench open the door to the office, finally making his long overdue escape into the corridor.

“Wait- _wait_!” Matt calls weakly from behind him.  

Techie doesn’t turn around, storming away (though the effect is somewhat ruined by his muffled sniffling and the noisy squeak of his beat-up sneakers on the linoleum floor). Fuck Matt for assuming the worst. _Fuck_ Matt for seeing the blubbering, pathetic mess of him hidden beneath the surface. _Fuck Matt_ for his stupid kissable lips and…

…and shit, that was his first kiss.

Techie ducks into a restroom and bawls.

 

*


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hear it's the Techienician anniversary o: so here's another chapter to celebrate!  
> Thank you so much again everyone who's commented, it's the weekend so now I have time to reply!

Curled up in the back of Mitaka’s sedan behind the safety of tinted black windows, Techie decides that the universe is cruel.

Naturally, it has chosen this day for rush hour traffic to delay their journey home by over an hour, and his hopes of calling Armitage to cry on his digital shoulder dwindle by the minute. It’s already past midnight in Imperial City, and though his older brother mysteriously manages to survive on only five hours of sleep a night, he insists on going to bed at one AM sharp.

The day hadn’t improved much following his miserable first kiss with Matt; he stayed huddled in a toilet cubicle weeping for long enough that he missed the first period after lunch and was late for AP C++ with Mr. Esso. His nose hurts from the football he took to the face and his head hurts from the crying, and every scratchy brush of the duct tape holding his glasses together against his skin only serves to remind him of Matt again.

Fucking _finally_ they pull into the Peach Trees gated community, Mitaka rolling them to a gentle stop outside of the Hux family mansion. Techie heaves his bag onto his shoulders, but the doors remain locked.

“Hey, um,” the driver begins timidly, looking up at Techie in the rear-view mirror with knitted eyebrows. “Your mom has those guys over again. You should probably take the back door, okay?”

“…You know you’re too good for this family, right?” Techie says sincerely.

Mitaka smiles and shrugs, unlocking the doors. “It pays the bills and I get to drive a cool car around,” he replies easily. “See you in the morning, Techie.”

The student hurries to the side entrance of the house; if Madeline’s awful friends are here, that means that for the first time in a week, Brendol _isn’t_. Taking a deep breath and pinching his nose to stop himself from sneezing the minute he steps inside, Techie unlocks the door. The mood in the house feels off immediately, only confirmed when he sees one of Madeline’s dogs peering out at him fearfully from behind a coat-rack (the fat Pekinese with the crooked face that he’d actually be rather fond of, if its fur didn’t make his eyelids swell up). Caleb and Kay’s cruel, noisy laughter echoes from the direction of the living room, covering the click of the door shut behind him.

He tip-toes up the stairs to his bedroom, and only once the door is locked behind him does he let the sneezing fit overtake him, fighting his way through it and across the room to hammer out a message on skype before he’s even got his shoes off.

**_Techie (18:24:04): are u still awake?_ **

Come on, come on, please, please –

**_(18:26:10) Hux is calling you._ **

“Yes!!” Techie hisses to himself with a little fist-pump to the air, hitting the accept button with relish. He settles into his worn leather chair while the call connects, toeing off his sneakers.

On the other side of the screen, Armitage’s eyes immediately narrow. “Did somebody hit you?” he says, by way of greeting.

“What? Why?” Techie frowns at the slightly pixellated version of his brother. The older Hux is in bed, dressed in sweatpants and a thin black tank top, laptop balanced on his knees and Kylo’s head on his stomach. Techie can see just about half of Kylo’s sleep-slack face, Armitage’s free hand combing lazily through his dark hair. It’s not an unfamiliar sight – there’s usually a fifty-fifty chance of either Kylo or Millicent using his brother as a pillow during these video calls.

“You look a little puffy, ah…here-ish,” Armitage says, gesturing with one hand over his nose and forehead.

“Oh, right, um...stray football to the face at lunchtime. S’okay, glasses took most of the damage,” Techie shrugs. He holds the taped-up pair to the webcam for his brother’s inspection.

“ _Techie_ , the Calvin Kleins?” Armitage groans disbelievingly, sounding so much like their father for a moment that, for the second time that day, Techie unexpectedly bursts into tears.

“Oh, sweetheart, no, no, what is it?” Tidge coos, leaning towards the webcam as if he can reach through the screen and get closer to Techie that way. The movement dislodges Kylo from his perch, the dark-haired man snuffling awake with a bewildered start. “You can tell me if it was those gang brats again you know, you don’t have to blame it on a football-“

“No, it’s-…it’s just that I- I-!” Techie sniffles, “I h-had my ffuh-first k-kiss!”

The pair on the other side of the screen are silent for a long moment.

“Who do I have to kill?” Kylo demands in a sleep-thick voice, squinting at the too-bright picture of his future baby-brother-in-law. Armitage rolls his eyes and shoves his fiancé out of frame.

“Fuck off back to sleep with you. Now go on,” he says more kindly to Techie. “Was it awful? Oh, _oh!_ Was it Matt?”

Techie squirms miserably in his desk chair, rubbing at his sore eyes. “…It was M-Matt.”

“That’s my boy,” his brother smirks, making a _pay up_ gesture towards where Kylo is still loitering off camera. “Told you Huxes always get what they want.”

The taller man rolls back into frame to settle against Armitage’s side, pulling the blankets up around his ears. “I’m not killing anyone for you, you just cost me a hundred bucks,” Kylo informs Techie sullenly with his eyes closed, which brings a brief, watery-smile to the teenager’s face.

“I…um, don’t know that you can cash in on that bet,” he sighs though, mouth turning down again. “It…I didn’t- I didn’t get _anything_ I wanted.”

Armitage waves a hand dismissively. “Oh, don’t worry about that. The bet was on the who, not the how. So, come on, let’s hear the gruesome details. Start from the beginning.”

Techie gratefully launches into a week’s worth of pent up thoughts and feelings, starting with the incident in the nurse’s office – he’d only managed to convey the bare, embarassing bones of what Kylo has code named “finger lickin’ good” through the medium of text – and spiralling towards storming out of Matt’s work room earlier that afternoon. The catharsis is immediate; Techie thinks, maybe, that this is what other people mean when they say talking to their parents makes them feel better. Armitage lets him get it out of his system, listening patiently with only a nod here and a thoughtful hum there, his hand drifting to tangle in dark hair. He’s been more of a mother to Techie than Madeline ever was, protective and defensive when he could just as easily have turned his nose up at his accidental half-brother.

“You know it was always going to be awful, right?” Armitage interrupts eventually. “You’ve been pining after him for…what, two years now?”

“Three,” Techie mumbles, poking mournfully at a stale chip on his desk. “I didn’t tell you the first year.”

“Well, there you go. How many Hollywood-style fireworks and candlelight situations did you dream up in that time? I mean, I would have only guessed bad breath and too much tongue, but…” He looks down at his fiancé’s sleeping face thoughtfully. “Still. I’m proud of you, darling. You took your first kiss instead of having it taken from you. You had the last word.”

The teenager screws up his face, breaking the stale chip into crumbs with a fingertip. “Aren’t you supposed to be telling me that Matt is bad news or demanding I sue for emotional damage or something?”

“Believe me, I’ll break every bone in his body myself if he pushes you around like that again,” Armitage says very, very seriously.

Techie smiles weakly at that.

“Now, it’s one-thirty in the morning here and I’m going to be very cranky tomorrow because I love you,” his brother sniffs haughtily, “so I leave you with this; wait for Matt to apologize, and if he doesn’t, find another janitor to project your daddy issues onto.”

“Oh fuck off, your first kiss was with Mr. Krennic just to piss dad off,” Techie grins crookedly. Armitage smirks and rolls his eyes, but doesn’t deny it, instead blowing a kiss to the camera before ending the call.

He feels…not good, now, but okay. Better, even though his nose aches and Madeline is yelling at Kay downstairs. Flopping back on his wide bed, Techie pulls off his broken glasses. He holds them up to the ceiling, running a finger over the tape keeping them together; his thoughts turn to the afternoon again almost guiltily. Part of him feels like he shouldn’t even _think_ of the janitor until he makes amends, but the other remembers the brief moment of lips against his own, warm like Matt’s hands. No bad breath, no overeager tongue. At least his first kiss had that going for it. And Matt calling after him, and Matt parting his knees, and…and now blood is rushing south to slowly fill out his dick.

Well…his father isn’t home, and his mother and her friends will shortly be too high to hear a thing. And after the day he’s had he fucking deserves a little time to himself, Techie thinks petulantly. But the thought of turning to his usual fantasies of the janitor annoys him suddenly, as if Matt is undeserving of his attention – out of petty, childish revenge he wanders back over to his elaborate computer set up in search of porn.

He finds himself drifting towards videos of tall, muscular men tied up and bound, lying there achingly hard and desperate while their partners cruelly bring them to the edge over and over, of vicious little twinks riding them for their own pleasure but never letting them finish. Techie’s hand eagerly slips under his waistband, and-

…and the moment his fingers brush the damp head of his cock, his brain substitutes the actors in the video, Matt underneath him sobbing for release while he grinds down teasingly.

With a growl of frustration, Techie forces his eyes wide open to focus on the bound man on screen. He’s…not particularly good looking, though, and something about his face reminds him uncomfortably of Unkar Plutt’s doughy features. The video is instantly ruined.

 _Fine_ , Techie thinks irritably, closing the browser and peeling off his clothes to stomp towards his en-suite bathroom. He turns the shower on with more force than necessary and closes his eyes under the spray of water to give his brain what it obviously craves – Matt, tied up on the floor of his utility room. But it’s not release he’s begging for; _please, please be quiet,_ fantasy Matt whimpers, _I’ll fuck you so good, I promise, just don’t let them hear, don’t get me fired_.

It’s…it’s not what Techie wants at all. He’s not nearly vindictive enough for this to turn him on.

Then his brain wanders on autopilot to more familiar territory, and he’s spread out naked on Matt’s workbench at school, hands bound behind his back and mouth covered with the same duct tape the janitor used to bind his glasses, the older man’s uniform pulled off just enough to ease his stiff cock into Techie’s hole. _Be quiet for me_ , fantasy Matt hisses, Techie stifling a moan in reality, _or do you want them all to hear what a whore you are?_ A rough shake of his shoulders like before, _gonna get me fired, and then who’ll fuck your slutty little ass?_ He whimpers, pressing his free hand over his mouth while the other pumps his cock fast and just this side of too tight and the Matt in his head pounds into him hard enough to rattle the contents of the shelves in the room.

The shame of giving in to the fantasy only turns him on more – biting his lip to keep quiet, he fumbles with the body wash to ease the first knuckle of a middle finger into his ass. He’s never been able to get off with fingers alone, the angle never quite right and too awkward to push more than a digit or two past the tight ring of muscle, but it helps the fantasy, having something pressed up inside himself, pretending it’s Matt’s big cock splitting him in two. The heat of the water burns where the older man pushed him up against his shelves and fuck he hopes it bruises, that he feels it for the next week, wishes it was his ass that was sore and he wants and wants and wants.

He comes silently, release splattering against the shower walls; _I’ll be quiet for you_ , he thinks deliriously, _I’ll be so good, I promise_.

Daddy issues, indeed.

 

*


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was another chapter that was getting reeeally long as I wrote it, but I think I found a pretty good place to cut it in two. I wanted to post at least one more chapter for Techienician anniversary weekend!
> 
> [I was listening to this remix a lot while writing it](https://soundcloud.com/drb3/steve-o), I think it fits the mood of this chapter pretty well.

Techie’s never been somewhere with a monsoon season, but he imagines it must be something like this, the rain pouring down in thick, heavy sheets like a drumbeat against the steel awning above him. He curls into himself tighter where he sits on the steps of New Republic High, huddled in a black, oversized sweater he never grew into. The bell rang over an hour ago, and even the after-school clubs have dispersed for the day. The parking lot is empty save for one lonely, beat-up blue car, and the dim light behind the clouds is already starting to fade.

It’s looking increasingly likely that Brendol has, once again, forgotten to send a replacement for Mitaka.

The driver takes the weekend closest to Jedhan New Year off, every year, without fail. He doesn’t think his father _forgets_ , exactly – no, that would imply he cared enough to remember this fact in the first place, and Techie is, and has always been, an afterthought. He can’t even bring himself to feel upset about it anymore; just distantly disappointed, and so, so fucking tired.

He tugs his phone out of his pocket, but with the heavy rain there are no cabs free – the closest wiggly uber icon is miles away. Though Peach Trees is just twenty minutes by car, it would take him at least an hour to walk (he did it before last year, when Brendol forgot then, too). Rey isn’t picking up her phone, probably because it’s Friday and she’s training at her dad’s dojo. If he had Finn’s number, the junior would probably come and get him, but he doesn’t, and the rest of his contact list is pathetically empty. Considering whether he’s desperate enough to try calling one of Madeline’s friends, Techie sighs and closes his eyes, burying his face against his knees.

 _Six more months_. Six more months, and then he can pack the suitcase Kylo bought him for his eighteenth birthday, redeem the flight voucher from Armitage and high-tail it to Imperial City. Forget about Madeline and Brendol, and Caleb and Kay and Bala-Tik and Unkar Plutt and the Guavians, and-

Someone clears their throat.

…And Matt. Techie raises his head wearily to find the janitor standing by the doors of the school, staring at the student with an odd expression.

“Hey,” Matt says, voice cracking a little.

Techie makes a noise in reply that is supposed to be “hello”, but it comes out so small and miserable that it’s more of a drawn out _oh_. He turns away again, huddling further into his sweater.

It’s been four days since Techie kissed him. To tell the truth, he’s been…not _hiding_ , exactly. He just so happens to know exactly when Matt comes to clean in the computer labs, and he’s been holed up in there under the guise of concentrating on his AP Programming project with the conspicuous exception of those times. Some part of him has been afraid to face the older man again – for fear of rejection, or for fear of Matt refusing to apologize; he’s not sure which. If he doesn’t see the man, he remains a Schrodinger’s box of potential outcomes.

“It’s getting dark,” Matt says, clearing his throat again.

Apparently it’s time to open the box. “Uh-huh,” Techie says to his knees, bracing himself. The rain keeps hammering on the awning above them, filling the silence.

“We should…talk,” the janitor says haltingly. “I owe you an apology.”

The redhead stills, holding his breath. He says nothing, waiting to see what Matt will do. For a moment, nothing happens – then, he hears the taller man tentatively step forward, until he’s standing in Techie’s limited peripheral vision, shuffling his weight from foot to foot anxiously.

“Fuck,” Matt bursts out suddenly. “Fuck, Techie, I’m so sorry for freaking out on you. I just- I go to anger management classes, I see a therapist, I swear I do, Principal Organa makes me, but I- I fucked up. So badly.” He scrubs a hand over his face, rubbing roughly at his eyes beneath his wireframe glasses. “Did I…did I hurt you? When I- grabbed you.”

“…A little,” Techie confesses, hugging his shins. “Just. Sore a few days.”

The blond makes an unhappy, pained noise in response, shoulders curling inwards miserably. “Sorry. God, I’m so sorry, and the things I…the dumb shit I said- I just- can I make it up to you?”

“It’s…it’s fine,” Techie shrugs, hair curtained around his downturned face.

“You, um. You need a ride home?” Matt offers.

Techie blinks up at him from behind the thick lenses of his glasses. “…Honestly?” he sighs. “That’s the last place I want to be right now.”

“Oh.” Matt scuffs the toes of his trainers against the concrete steps awkwardly. He abruptly drops and folds his long legs, cricket-like, to sit down a little distance away from Techie. His slouched posture seems forced and uncomfortable, somehow.

A few minutes pass in silence, both of them watching the rain pelting down in front of them where it joins a small lake forming in the car park.

“You like video games?” Matt asks suddenly, almost angrily. The student turns to find him still scowling out at the rain, but…but there are two high spots of colour on his cheeks, big ears bright pink at the tips. Techie makes a small noise of affirmation. The blond tenses further, scowl deepening. “You…you wanna come hang out and play some?”

“Like…at your place?” Techie asks, leaning forward curiously to try and catch Matt’s eyes.

“Uh-huh. I mean. I get if you, like. Don’t want anything to do with me. I get it,” the janitor says stiffly, squeezing his eyes shut. “I won’t be mad. If you don’t.”

Techie’s heart leaps up into his throat. _Like a date?_ he wants to ask, but he bites it back – too desperate, too uncertain, too unbelievable. Instead, he gives the older man a shy, wobbly smile, brushing his hair back behind an ear. “That sounds- really nice, actually.”

“Yeah?” Matt looks up at him hopefully, with the same sort of big brown eyes that Madeline’s dogs give him at the dinner table while begging for scraps, and it suddenly occurs to Techie just how insecure the man next to him is, how little he really knows about Matt, save for the certainty that he forgives him.

“Yeah,” Techie repeats, smile widening. For a few seconds, Matt just looks at him in stunned disbelief, mouth slack, until he suddenly shakes himself out of it and scrambles to his feet. The janitor shrugs off his bomber jacket while Techie stands up and dusts his jeans off, holding it out over his head like a tent with space for the shorter boy, too.

“That’s my car over there. Ready to run for it?” Matt grins bashfully, face lighting up as Techie takes his place under the jacket against his side. Techie nods, breathless. “Okay. Three…two…one… _go!_ ”

They both shriek as their feet hit the ground, ankle-height puddles rushing into their shoes and soaking their socks – their wide strides splash the water up against their shins, cold and sobering and _holy shit, this is happening, this is real_ , Techie thinks, laughing as they stumble their way across the car park lake to Matt’s beat up blue vehicle. The jacket doesn’t really help; by the time they reach the passenger side, they’re both soaked, but Matt holds it over him anyway like a true gentleman while he hurries in.

“Argh, that fucking _sucked_!” Matt yells when he gets in on the driver’s side, slamming the door, but his mouth is still stretched in a smile anyway as he tugs his glasses off to wipe away the raindrops with his shirt. Techie giggles to himself and does the same while Matt starts the car and pulls out of the parking lot, heading in the opposite direction to Peach Trees and joining the rush hour traffic. They sit quietly together stuck behind an SUV covered in “Vote Tarkin!” bumper stickers, windscreen wipers and rain tapping on the roof lulling Techie into warm contentment despite the squelch of his socks in his shoes.

“I, um. I really am sorry,” Matt breaks the silence after a while, combing a hand nervously through his damp curls. “You really scared me, you know?”

“How?” Techie asks softly.

“I’ve never, uh, had a student come on to me before,” the janitor says, cheeks burning. “And you’re so…” he coughs into his fist, shaking his head; Techie wants to ask _so what?_ But Matt continues on in a different direction. “My, um. My therapist says I cover fear with anger. So I kinda. Lost it.” His hands clench on the steering wheel hard enough that it creaks under his palms.

The student reaches out to ease one of Matt’s hands off the wheel, taking it gently in his own – the traffic is at a standstill, anyway. “I’m not trying to get you fired,” he says earnestly. Matt gives him another one of those intense, unreadable looks, but then he nods and squeezes Techie’s hand in reply, turning back towards the SUV in front of them.

They inch forward another mile like that, hand in hand, before a disbelieving laugh bubbles out of Techie’s chest. “I, um. I’ve k-kinda…l-liked you for a really long time,” he confesses quietly. “But I’m…sorta realizing I d-don’t really know that mmuch about you? Like- like is Matt your first or last name? It’s like- the weirdest, best kept secret in school.”

Matt grimaces. “Yeah, that’s. Kinda on purpose. My last name sucks.” He takes his hand back to rub his neck awkwardly. “It’s, uh. Radar. Matt Radar.”

Techie blinks. “What’s so bad about that?”

Matt turns to him with a flat look and points to his big ears. “You’ve seen these, right? Add a surname like that, it’s a fucking death sentence in school. Matt the radar dish, satellite boy, ‘hey Matt, picking up any signals today?’ Whatever.” Techie is honestly only half-listening, instead dreamily adding his own name to Matt’s in his head; Technical Radar? Maybe Technical Radar-Hux? Techie Hux-Radar?

“I like it,” he mumbles to his feet, hiding a blush behind his hair.

In the end it takes nearly forty minutes to get to the apartment complex where Matt lives, though Techie guesses it should take only ten on a good day – the janitor is much closer to the school than he is. He has a parking spot reserved across the road, meaning another mad dash from the car to the foyer of the building where they both leave wet, dirty footprints leading into the elevator and out to the third floor.

“You want a towel or something?” Matt offers, fumbling with the heavy set of keys to his front door.

“That’s okay, but, um. Maybe I should take these off out here,” Techie says, unlacing the miserable looking shoelaces of his yellow converses. He half expects water to spill out of them like in a cartoon, but they only make a damp squelch when he pulls his feet out and gets to peeling off his sodden socks.

“Shit, yeah. Give me those, I’ll put them on the radiator.” Matt takes them, pushing open the door with a shoulder and ushering Techie inside.

It’s a modest apartment – a living room with one small window and a kitchenette along one wall, washer-dryer hidden away in a cupboard. Most of the room is taken up by a big couch with deep cushions, long enough for someone even as tall as Matt to lie fully on, with a coffee table in front of it covered in take-out menus and empty soda cans facing a big TV on the opposite wall. The janitor has a couple of different video game consoles hooked up to it, and a little rack of weights shoved to one side. There’s a pull-up bar in the doorway to the only other room of the house – Techie peeks through it to get a glimpse of the bedroom, where a bathroom must follow too, but all he can see of it without the light on is the blinking LED of a hibernating laptop charging on top of the bed.

“I, um. Sorry, it’s kind of a mess,” Matt stutters, hurrying to scoop up the trash littering the table. “I’m just- I’m gonna shower and get changed quickly, so maybe have a look at those menus and pick something for dinner? Oh, wait, shit- do you want some dry clothes too? I could- lend you something?”

“Maybe, um…some sweatpants? My jeans got kinda soaked,” Techie agrees reluctantly. Matt nods and ducks into his bedroom, returning with some grey sweatpants that look both too big and too long for Techie, but they’re dry at least, so once the janitor closes the bathroom door behind him he struggles out of his skinny jeans and into Matt’s clothes.

 _Matt’s clothes_ , Techie thinks with a secret little smile to himself, stroking the worn fabric reverently. He gives the take-out menus a cursory look, melting into the plush couch: pizza, noodles, stir-fry, curry, pasta, sushi…with the vague hope of a second kiss happening later, he discards the more fragrant options, settling on a pasta place. Under the mess on the coffee table he’s surprised to find a few textbooks, liberally decorated with highlighter and post-it notes.

“You’re studying to be an electrician?” he asks, wide-eyed, when Matt wanders back into the room in a clean t-shirt and sweatpants of his own.

“You don’t think I _want_ to be a janitor forever, do you?” The older man raises an eyebrow at him, heading over to the TV to turn the consoles on. Techie flushes, embarrassed and a little ashamed of himself; honestly he’d never even considered that Matt might have bigger hopes and dreams than to clean up after teenagers for the rest of his life. He really doesn’t know much about the man after all.

But Matt only throws himself down on the couch, making Techie bounce, picking up the menu he’d set aside. “Pasta, huh? Cool, this place is pretty good. You like mushrooms? Their mushroom sauce is _the shit_ , okay-”

It’s so comfortable, here, ordering take-out with Matt and poking through his video game collection, in a way that being at home in the Hux family mansion never is. He feels- fuck, Techie hasn’t felt this relaxed since the last time Armitage and Kylo were in New Republic on holiday, sneaking out to the chaotic Skywalker-Organa-Solo house to visit them. Matt passes him a scratched-up controller – the least damaged of the two, it seems – and they settle into a Mario Kart tournament while waiting for dinner to arrive.

“What the- did you just _lap_ me?! I’m in second place!!” Matt yells disbelievingly. “You’re fucking cheating!”

“Nuh- _uh_ , I’m just that good,” Techie answers back smugly, eyes never leaving the screen, so he misses Matt reaching out to slap the controller from his hands. “Wha- now who’s cheating!!” He picks the controller back up, squirming to the other side of the sofa and kicking his legs out so Matt can’t get him again. He still beats Matt easily anyway.

The janitor throws his controller to the floor hard with a roar of frustration, and suddenly Techie understands how they got so scratched up.

Matt flinches when he sees Techie eyeing him from the other end of the sofa. “Sorry. Fuck, sorry, uh. I get. Kind of competitive,” he says, deflating. “Fuck, maybe this was a bad idea, um. I can still- if you want me to drive you home-?”

Techie crawls over to Matt’s side of the couch, bending down to pick his controller up and putting it back in his hands. “Co-op?” he suggests with a small, patient smile. The look Matt gives him is so heartbreakingly grateful that it makes Techie’s chest hurt, brown eyes wide and adoring; the blond leans in ever so slightly, and-

…and the doorbell rings. Matt curses under his breath, tripping over the carpet to answer the door to the delivery guy. _Damn you, pasta man,_ Techie thinks viciously, feeling tempted to slam his own controller down. He’s mollified by the fact that Matt settles back down right up against him, arm to arm, side pressed up against side, and if he leans his weight into the taller man a little more than necessary while they eat their pasta, neither of them mentions it. The sauce is as good as Matt said it was, which makes him puff up with pleased pride when Techie says so through a mouthful of food.

By 10PM they’ve cycled through a few games, ending up as a team on Smash Bros. instead, fighting a pair of players from Jedha online.

“No no _fuck come on NO_!” Matt shouts, the last of his lives disappearing as a Luigi knocks him off the stage. “Techie! Avenge me!!” he whines dramatically, flopping back against the cushions.

“Luigi must die,” Techie agrees solemnly. He’s only lost one of his three lives so far, but the Jedhans they’re playing against are as good if not better than he is. It takes all of his concentration to get the Ness out of the picture with his Kirby while dancing out of Luigi’s range.

Something warm and wet presses against his forehead for the briefest moment.

Techie jumps, startled, staring up at Matt with wide eyes. “Did you just…?”

“Sorry,” Matt says, going red. “You, uh. You just looked so cute, sitting there in…in my sweatpants, with, um, with your sticking tongue out and _oh shit_ _watch out_!!”

The redhead looks back at the screen in time to see the Luigi knock him off the stage. Still one life left. “Motherfucker,” he hisses, but with his health restored he easily brings the playing field to an even one-to-one left. With Matt hooting and hollering encouragement next to him he attacks relentlessly, chipping away at Luigi’s damage percentage, until finally a baseball bat appears and-

“YES!” Matt yells when Techie smashes Luigi off screen for good, jumping up from the couch and dragging the smaller man with him to spin him in a circle around the room. Techie squeaks, laughing while he scrambles his arms around Matt’s shoulders to hold on, and his foot smacks against the coffee table hard with their spinning but he really, really doesn’t care and then Matt dips him backwards like they’re dancing and _kisses him_. It’s- it’s everything Techie wanted the first kiss to be, warm and sweet and soft and breathless, strong arms keeping him safe from gravity and broad, firm shoulders underneath his hands.

Matt pulls back slowly, looking down into Techie’s glittering blue eyes. “Sorry,” he grins crookedly, “I, uh. Was gonna ask for a do-over. Guess I just…did it anyway.”

Techie kisses him again.

 

*


	5. Chapter 5

One kiss becomes two becomes making out on the couch.

With his arms still carefully cradled around Techie, Matt raises them upright, walking backwards until his legs hit the sofa. He pulls the student down with him when he flops onto the cushions, Techie falling inelegantly into the janitor’s lap and their glasses smacking into each other with a harsh clack.

“Whoops,” Matt laughs shyly, tugging the frames gently from the redhead’s face, “don’t wanna break these ones too, huh?” He sets his own aside while Techie makes himself comfortable, straddled across his thighs, before ducking forwards to take pink lips between his own once more.

Techie sighs gratefully; he feels like he’s melting, sucking tentatively at Matt’s bottom lip while the older man’s hands travel up his torso, one spread over a bony shoulder blade and the other stroking aimlessly at the small of his back, his own arms hooked over Matt’s shoulders. It occurs to him that nobody has held him for over a year, not since the last time Armitage pulled him close at the airport – touch-starved and over-sensitive, each pass of Matt’s palms feels like a brand, leaving tingles in their wake. He shivers when a hand slides higher, over the nape of his neck and up into his hair, tangling in the long copper strands.

Matt uses his grip there to tilt the teenager’s face this way and that, directing their kisses as he pleases. A slow, teasing swipe of his tongue has the younger man’s lips parting with a shallow intake of breath, Matt licking his way into Techie’s mouth to taste him, and if he whimpers at the new sensation and bucks his hips up against the janitor’s, well, he can’t help it.

The blond lets out a satisfied little grunt at the movement, the hand at the small of Techie’s back slipping lower to push at his tailbone, urging him closer, before giving up any pretence of self-discipline and cupping his ass, kneading lightly.

“ _Mmf_ \- M-Matt,” Techie sighs, eyelids fluttering as the older man’s other hand joins its twin. He’s getting hard embarrassingly quickly from nothing but kissing and gentle groping, but with only sweatpants and cotton underwear separating them, he can feel Matt’s cock twitching with interest underneath his own, too. Feeling bold, he grinds his hips down in an experimental little circle, swallowing the groan that spills from the older man’s mouth.

Matt holds him like he might disappear at any moment, as if he’ll turn into a wisp of smoke between his palms, and kisses just as desperately, becoming more urgent with every minute. The noises hummed in the back of his throat seem…melancholy, somehow, bittersweet; his eyes still closed, Matt breaks their kiss, panting against the student’s swollen lips.

“Techie,” Matt murmurs, looking pained, “do you- do you really want to do this?”

The smaller of the two pulls back anxiously. “What- how do you mean?”

“Like…fuck, you’re a smart kid, you’re gonna graduate in six months and go off to some A-list university far away from here,” Matt clarifies, brown eyes heartbroken. “You really want to hang around with- with a fuckup like me?”

“…Actually, I, um. I didn’t apply for college,” Techie mumbles with an embarrassed shrug. Matt gapes at him. “It’s so expensive and- and _yeah_ , my dad could pay for it, but I don’t want that debt to him hanging over my head, you know?” he adds quickly, wringing his hands. “My plan was just to- to get the hell away from my parents, maybe move to Imperial City with my brother, get a job doing coding or something.”

Matt studies him for a few seconds, before breathing out heavily through his nose, relieved. “Okay,” he nods slowly. “Okay, so, no college. You wanna...you want to try this? With me?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Techie sighs desperately, bumping his forehead against Matt’s.

“Because we’re gonna have to have some ground rules,” Matt warns him seriously, pushing his long nose back against Techie’s. “Just until you graduate, okay?”

“So you don’t get in trouble with the school,” Techie agrees, nodding against the older man’s face.

“Or lose my job for dating a student, yeah. So, rule one; we keep this secret,” he says solemnly. “That means no dates, you realize. If…if you still want to do this in six months, fuck, I’ll take you everywhere, I’ll take you out to every restaurant in town, but until then we’re stuck in my shitty apartment.”

“Mhm,” Techie nods. He decides that now is probably too soon to announce that he’d be perfectly happy to move in with Matt tomorrow morning, by virtue of his apartment not being the Hux household alone.

“Rule two; no interacting at school,” Matt continues with a grimace. “If you need to come borrow duct tape or something again, that’s fine, but no more trying to stroke my dick in my office, all right?” he grins teasingly, and Techie laughs softly but nods again.

“Which, um. Leads to rule three,” Matt adds awkwardly, adjusting his legs to relieve the pressure on his trapped cock, still half-hard under Techie’s hips. “We should…probably take this slowly, okay? And like. Go and get tested first.”

“T-that’s, um, oh,” Techie stutters, feeling himself go bright red, “I uh…I don’t really need to? I’ve n-never…you’re the only…”

Matt pushes Techie back by the shoulders to stare at his flushed face in utter disbelief. “Bullshit.” Techie stares back at him. “But- but the- the sucking my fingers!! And? _Never_??”

Techie shrugs bashfully.

“Holy shit,” Matt breathes, awestruck, “you’re a slut waiting to happen.” His brain catches up with his mouth, suddenly looking so horrified with himself that Techie bursts out laughing. “Fuck, sorry, I didn’t mean-“

“It’s okay,” the student giggles. He curls forward to hide his face against Matt’s jaw. “Maybe I am,” he mouths against the warm skin there, “maybe I…mm…need a big strong man to keep me on the straight and narrow.”

Matt groans, head tipping back with a thump against the top of the couch. “The universe is testing me,” he grumbles to the ceiling, but his hands wander back down the redhead’s narrow back to continue their groping exploration of Techie’s ass. He makes the disgruntled noise of a man wrestling with his conscience, giving Techie’s butt one last squeeze before wrapping his arms around his waist and tipping them both sideways to lie down on the couch. “Fine, but rule three still applies. _I_ should get tested, and we should really cool off.”

Techie lets out a disappointed hum, but Matt leans in to kiss his puffy eyelids apologetically, so gently and so sweetly that he can’t find it in himself to complain, cradled in the big arms keeping him from falling off the sofa.

“Maybe we could, um. Ask each other questions? You know, to…to get to know each other better. And to distract us from…y’know,” the redhead stammers, blushing, angling his hips away.

“Okay,” Matt nods. “Okay, sure, that’s. That’s good. Hmm…oh, _oh_! Is it true your brother kidnapped you?”

“Oh _Jesus_ ,” Techie lets out a startled burst of laughter, “you really…you really went for it, huh. God, how do you even know about that?”

“Man, _everybody_ at the Academy heard that rumour. It was like, ‘hey, welcome to high school, watch out for Hux in eleventh grade, he kidnaps children and brainwashes them’,” Matt says with an uncertain grin. “Fuck! So it’s actually true??”

Techie groans and hides his face in the couch cushions. “It wasn’t _kidnapping_ , exactly, he just…ran away from home and decided I was coming too.”

“What happened?” Matt presses, eyes wide.

“I dunno, I was only four at the time. I remember it being a pretty good day, actually…we took a bus somewhere and he bought me ice cream. The police caught up with us, and I thought that was pretty great too ‘cause they drove fast with the sirens on for me.” Techie shrugs plaintively. “My dad enrolled him in the Academy after that. He was meant to go to New Republic High, like me.”

“Shit,” Matt breathes.

“Armitage, um. He tried to get custody of me a few times, after he turned eighteen and dad kicked him out,” Techie mumbles into the quiet space between them. “It never worked out. I always wished it would have.”

The older man looks at him with sad eyes, reaching between them to take Techie’s hand in his own. He brings it to his lips to press a kiss to each knuckle. The teenager shuffles himself a little closer to tentatively tilt his face up for a proper kiss; Matt is quick to oblige, pressing his lips to Techie’s chastely, a thumb still stroking the smaller hand in his own.

“Sorry,” Techie says softly, pulling back, “that got heavy fast, huh?”

“No, no, don’t be sorry,” Matt nudges at him. “Ask me something now. Anything you want.”

“Can I…um. Is it true you went to prison?”

The blond grimaces and nods. “Yeah. I was, uh. Kind of a screw-up. Got into trouble a lot. Did some time for assault and property damage when I was twenty. Don’t…don’t hold it against me? Please? I’ve been trying really fucking hard to get my shit together, I promise, Principal Organa has been helping me-”

“Matt,” Techie interrupts him gently, bumping their noses together again, "would I be here if I did? I mean, you didn’t like…kill anybody, right?”

“God, no! Nothing permanent, even, just- just stupid bar fights and breaking shit that wasn’t mine,” Matt says, cringing back. He huffs a self-deprecating, unhappy little laugh. “Jeez, the kids at school think I get angry now…they should have seen me when I was still at the Academy.”

Sensing Matt’s mood dipping, Techie pokes him lightly. “Your turn to ask a question again.”

“Um. What are you allergic to?” With a flinch, the teenager’s hands automatically move to his face to hide his puffy eyelids behind his hair. “Sorry, shit, no- that’s not about your eyes, there’s nothing wrong with them, they’re this really, _really_ great blue- I just don’t wanna like. Feed you something that puts you in the ER??”

“It’s…it’s okay, I know my eyes are, ah. Pretty red. Uh, let’s see…dog fur, cat fur, pollen, really stinky perfume, make-up, soap that’s too strong, uh…dust…oh, insect bites too,” Techie says, counting them off on his fingers. “Not so much foods, it’s more like…skin and breathing stuff? Oh, um,” his mouth twists with embarrassment, “also…probably latex, so…yeah. You should…you should get tested. Like you said.”  

“So scented candles are out, but no lactose intolerance; whipped cream in bed is still on the cards. Got it,” Matt teases with a leer, making Techie snort loudly. “Your turn now.”

“Do you, um. Have any brothers or sisters?”

“I might? I don’t know. I only met my dad once. I wasn’t impressed even as a six year old, so I never bothered again,” Matt shrugs. “Maybe he got married and had other kids. My mom died when I was real small so my aunt raised me, mostly.”

“Oh, I’m- I’m sorry. Shit, there’s me trying to keep it light,” Techie winces.

“No, it’s cool, but, uh. Speaking of family. It’s past eleven, and, um. Don’t take this the wrong way, but. Shouldn’t…someone be asking where you are?” Matt frowns. “It’s getting late, I should probably drive you home-”

The thought of leaving the safe haven of the janitor’s arms and going back to walking on eggshells in the Hux house is like icy water poured suddenly down his back. “Don’t make me go,” Techie pleads miserably, voice so small he hardly recognizes himself. “I…there’s no one. Missing me at home. Don’t…please?”

Matt gives him a long, searching look, frown deepening, but he seems to get some sense of what lies in wait for Techie in Peach Trees, scooping the redhead against his chest in answer to the distress on his face.

“Just tonight, okay?” he murmurs, kissing Techie’s forehead. “I have my therapy sessions on Saturday afternoons, so…I guess I can drop you off on my way there tomorrow instead.” Techie nods against his shoulder, clutching gratefully at Matt’s t-shirt, the sense of relief so strong that he feels his eyes prickle with tears. The older man rocks him from side to side, slowly, soothing, until his iron grip on the shirt under his hands eases, and Techie feels like he could fall asleep, just like this.

“You wanna move to my bed?” Matt suggests, before hastily adding, “Not for anything weird! But…I, uh. I _am_ pretty tired, and we could…cuddle there, maybe?”

“I want that,” Techie agrees with a drowsy nod against Matt’s chest. He untangles himself from the blond’s arms to sit up, letting the taller man lead him by the hand to the bedroom. The window in here is even smaller than the one in the living room, just a thin strip near the ceiling to let a little light in with an air conditioning vent underneath it. The bed is big but plain (no headboard, a side table with a crooked lamp next to it), with rumpled, unmade sheets and an oversized duvet kicked to one side, the laptop Techie spotted earlier still blinking quietly on top of it. In the corner of the room there’s a chest of drawers for clothes and shelves above it, a mismatched collection of DVDs, paperbacks and filing boxes squeezed between them, and the carpeted floor is littered with laundry both clean and dirty. Matt tugs him past the mess to the even tinier bathroom (barely big enough for the narrow shower, toilet and sink it contains, let alone the two of them as well) to offer him a toothbrush and toothpaste before leaving him in there for his nightly ablutions.

While Matt takes his turn in the bathroom, Techie rescues his glasses from the living room and his phone from his soggy jeans.

No new messages from Brendol or Madeline.

 _Whatever_ , he thinks irritably, flicking his phone on silent and setting it down on the side table; he’s sitting on the edge of Matt’s bed. _Matt’s bed_. The student wriggles his way head-first under the duvet, taking a deep breath of the comforting smell of the older man he finds there – the lingering trace of his aftershave, the faintest scent of stale sleep-sweat, the unique musk of a twenty-six year old man.  

The blanket is suddenly peeled back, Matt’s face looking down at him with a fond smile. “Whatcha doin’ under there?”

“Nothing,” Techie lies. He reaches out with grabby-hands, beyond pleased when the janitor crawls under the duvet with him and snuggles up close, pulling Techie into his arms. He stretches out, briefly, to hit the lamp on the side table, and then it’s just the two of them, the darkness broken only by the orange glow of street lamps outside, patterned against the ceiling.

“You okay?” Matt murmurs into his hair.

 _Perfect_ , Techie wants to say, _I’ve never been this happy in my life_ , but instead he mumbles a little “mhm” and burrows his face against Matt’s collarbone.

For a while, the blond combs his hands lazily through Techie’s hair, the only sound his soft breathing and the rain still rushing down outside, tap-tapping against the air conditioning unit under the window. In the distance, the sound of cars speeding along the road, wheels whooshing through wet puddles. It’s the sort of domestic bliss he’s always envied of Kylo and his brother – soon, Matt’s hands still, breathing evening out to puff lightly against the pillows.

Despite the calm, Techie can’t sleep. He wonders when the last time he shared a bed with someone was. Maybe…it must have been when he was six, when he snuck into Armitage’s bed after Brendol had given his older brother a particularly harsh beating that evening, wanting to comfort and be comforted. He hasn’t even slept in a bed that wasn’t his own since he was ten, the one and only time he had been allowed to sleep over at Rey’s house. Matt’s bed feels alien in a way that has him wide awake, the world outside far noisier than he’s used to in the secluded, gated community of Peach Trees.

Around one in the morning, Matt twists onto his back with a snuffle, and Techie regretfully pulls away to face the wall, thinking he might fall asleep better without arms around him, too used to being alone. The older man snores peacefully on the other side of the bed. The rain outside gets worse. At two AM, Techie gives up to reach for his phone on the nightstand. The bright light makes him wince; still no messages.

“Mm…baby?” Matt mumbles sleepily.

Techie’s breath hitches at the endearment, quickly shutting his phone off. “S-sorry,” he whispers, peering over his shoulder at the older man, “did I wake you?”

Matt makes a nonsensical noise in reply. “C’mere,” he slurs instead, pulling Techie against him to spoon, the shorter man’s skinny back pressed up against his warm, solid front. He starts snoring softly again almost instantly, but it’s so lovely, so safe and comfortable that Techie wants to cry.

Finally, _finally_ , he falls asleep like that, nestled in Matt’s arms, the rain still whispering outside.  

 

*


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It only took 14,000 words, but we finally reached the full-blown smut! Good job, everybody. Tags have now been updated.

Something wakes him up.

Techie blinks slowly, trying to figure out what roused him; the rain is still going strong outside, still tapping noisily against the air conditioner, but in his sleep it’s become a constant, soothing white noise. The morning light in Matt’s room is dim and grey, the tiny window not doing much other than to announce there’s daylight somewhere out in the world. The blond himself is still curled tightly around Techie’s back, one arm a heavy, grounding weight over his waist – his breath is soft and even enough that he can’t tell whether the man is awake or not yet.

His eye catches on his phone, discarded by the pillows near his head late last night; the LED on the side is on, indicating new messages. Unsure of what he’ll find waiting for him, Techie pulls the phone near enough to his face that he can just about read the texts, squinting at the screen.

 

 **_Tidge (09:15): What the fuck_ **  
**_Tidge (09:15): You’re not online_ **  
**_Tidge (09:16): You’re ALWAYS online_ **  
**_Tidge (09:31): Are you dead?_ **  
**_Tidge (09:44): ????_ **  
**_Tidge (09:50): Okay where the fuck are you_ **  
**_Tidge (09:51): Am I going to have to ring the house phone_ **  
**_Tidge (09:51): Am I going to have to speak to Madeline, is that what is about to happen_ **  
**_Tidge (10:02): FUCKING BITCH BLOCKED MY NUMBER_ **  
**_Tidge (10:06): Don’t think I won’t make Kylo phone the house instead young man_ **  
**_Tidge (10:15): Holy shit, his number is blocked too_ **  
**_Tidge (10:15): How does she even know Kylo’s number_ **  
**_Tidge (10:35): Since you are a teenager, Kylo insists I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are sleeping in_ **  
**_Tidge (10:36): But I swear to god if you don’t reply to this as soon as you’re awake_ **  
**_Tidge (10:36): I’ll book a flight to New Republic tonight, don’t think I won’t_ **

 

He wants to roll his eyes and sigh at his brother’s histrionics, but the truth is it fills him with a kind of warm, much-needed relief that at least _one_ person in his family gives a shit about where he is. Maybe he should have texted Armitage last night, just to let him know- though then his phone would have been blowing up with a completely different string of texts.

“Matt?” he says quietly, in case he’s still asleep. The older man makes a noise that is enough like “uh-huh” that Techie continues on. “My, um, my brother kind of already knows about us, and, uh. Do you think…can I take a selfie of us? Just to prove to him that I’m still alive?”

“Uh-huh,” Matt says again, more coherently this time. He stirs, slowly draping himself further over Techie. “Take it like this,” he slurs drowsily, leaning his head in to start kissing softly at Techie’s cheek.

He quickly flips on the phone’s camera, wanting to take a picture less for Armitage’s sake and more for his own every second, something to keep him going later on when he’s far away from this moment; his blurry face blinks back at him on screen, Matt still pecking sweetly and sleepily at him with his eyes closed, and- fuck, it’s almost embarrassing how happy Techie looks. Biting his lip does nothing to hide the smile on his face. He takes a few snaps; squinting at the screen, he hopes at least one of them is mostly in focus – without his glasses, he can’t really tell – and sends the one he _thinks_ might be the best off to Armitage.

The response is immediate.

 

**_Tidge (11:08): MATT AS IN MATT FUCKING RADAR?!?!  
Tidge (11:08): YOU’RE DEAD TO ME _ **

 

Considering that Armitage shouts this at Kylo at least once a week, Techie doesn’t take the message too seriously. From behind him, Matt snorts, apparently awake enough to be watching the phone screen now. Techie clicks his phone off, pushing it away with the intention of going back to sleep.

Matt, however, seems to have other ideas. His kisses drift down to Techie’s jawline, ghosting along the ridge of bone, becoming less dry, soft pecks and longer, wet and sucking at the pale skin under his lips. The redhead shivers under the attention, and that’s when he…oh.

 _Oh_. That’s not Matt’s leg pressed up against him at all.

“Good morning,” Techie purrs quietly, tipping his head to the side to allow Matt better access to the delicate space between his jaw and his ears, hips twitching backwards to brush up to the morning wood rubbing up against his ass between far too many layers of fabric.

“Good morning to you too,” Matt rumbles directly into Techie’s ear, dragging the exposed earlobe in between his lips lightly with his teeth. He slips the arm trapped against the bed between Techie’s waist and the mattress, hand pushing lightly at his stomach to urge the student back against him, grinding languidly.

“What happened to- _ah_ \- mm, rule three?” Techie teases, one hand reaching behind his head to tangle in blond curls, trying to direct the mouth at his ear lower to the sensitive skin of his neck. Though he somehow, miraculously, managed to start the day in Matt’s arms without an erection, his cock fills out rapidly now to make up for it, straining against the seam of the grey sweatpants he borrowed last night.

Matt growls. “Woke up with you in my bed,” he says, nipping at the space where shoulder meets neck before licking higher, tongue flat, in a way that has the younger man’s hips jerking forward reflexively. “Little tease…you think I didn’t imagine you here? After sucking my fingers like that? Stroking your hands up my thighs in my office and drooling over my dick?”

“Oh ffuck,” Techie whimpers, because _yes, yes, yes_. He arches his back to get Matt’s cock pressed up against the crack of his ass. With the hand underneath him, the blond reaches up to tip Techie’s head to the side for a proper, filthy kiss, tongues lapping messily at each other, stale morning breath overruled by the heat in their groins. The student whines and squirms when Matt takes his tongue between his lips and sucks, desperate already for so much more. “Please- _mhh…_ ”

Matt’s free arm travels lower, but instead of sliding a hand between his legs like Techie so urgently wants, he slips underneath his sweater, wide, warm palms smoothing over the skin there in a way that has the redhead’s stomach jumping. The older man makes a frustrated grunt against Techie’s mouth, pushing up the fabric of his shirt until it bunches up under his arms and he has free reign of the torso pulled against him.

“Gorgeous,” Matt sighs, breaking the kiss to peer down at the pale canvas of skin revealed to him, goose-bumped in the chilly morning air. His fingers drift to Techie’s small, peaked pink nipples, rubbing feather-light circles over them. “So pretty…”

“ _Anh_ \- nnow w-who’s teasing,” Techie whines, needing something, _anything_ more, huffing his chest out to try and get the blond to focus. Matt nips warningly at his shoulders, sucking and laving over the skin in a way that will surely leave stark purple marks, but he pinches and rubs at the nipples under his hands obligingly anyway. The smaller man cries out, hips bucking, out of his control; fuck, he wants- he needs- he’s never been so hard in his _life_ , cock aching and leaking a damp little patch against his sweatpants, he wants to come, _needs_ it, feels like the slightest brush against his erection will have him spilling over the edge. And Matt, bigger and better and thick and solid, rutting slowly against his ass- he wants to beg, to roll over and pull his pants down and offer himself up for the taking, now now now.

“M-Mattie, _please_ ,” Techie almost sobs.

The older man hums against his neck. “’Mattie’, huh? I like that…” Matt nudges a knee between Techie’s thighs, parting them and leaving his leg there to keep them open; one hand remains over his chest, tugging at a sensitive nipple, while the other dances down over his ribcage, brushing lightly, so lightly over his soft belly, thumb catching on the ridge of his bony hips before finally ( _yes, lower, come on_ ) sneaking its way under the waistband of his pants.

Techie slaps a hand over his mouth to stifle the cry that comes out of him when Matt’s warm fingers brush the head of his cock. He- oh god, Matt’s hand wraps around his length, only an inch or two left uncovered by the big palm, and he has to bite down on his own hand to stop himself from coming immediately.

“Why are you covering your mouth?” Matt murmurs into his ear, nuzzling at him with his nose while he gives Techie’s cock a few slow, exploratory strokes, feeling out the modest weight and length of him in his hand. “Is it too much? You want me to stop?”

“No, nonono don’t stop,” Techie whines, bucking up into the fist around his dick. Matt’s thumb slides over his slit and fuck, _fuck-_ he bites down on his hand again to keep himself from yelling.

“None of that, then,” Matt chides, pulling the student’s hand gently away from between his teeth. “Let me hear you, baby…let me see you.” He lets go just long enough to push the grey sweatpants down around his thighs, exposing Techie’s flushed, precum-sticky cock to the morning air, before starting to stroke him with firm, steady pulls. Somehow, still having his clothes tangled around his legs and pushed up around his armpits makes Techie feel so dirty, so _easy_ , putty in Matt’s arms – he’d do anything the older man asked right now, anything at all, world narrowed down entirely to the tightness in his balls, the sure way Matt tugs his foreskin up and down over the head of his shaft, the heat coiling in his spine. His thighs tense, trying to hold on just a little more, just a little longer-

He lasts little more than a minute, cum spilling into Matt’s fist and crying out with what he is certain is the loudest orgasm he’s ever had.

“ _Baby_ ,” Matt moans as he works Techie through it, “fuck, look at you…I wanna- can I-? Let me…let me come on you?”

And oh, god, it is way too soon for the redhead to be hearing things like that from Matt’s mouth, having only barely finished coming, legs still trembling; his cock gives a valiant spasm, one last glob of cum oozing out. The janitor moves to pull his sticky hand away, but Techie grabs at his wrist to keep him from wiping off the mess. He shuffles onto his back.

Looking Matt straight in the eye, he starts to lap at his own spent seed.

“ _Jesus Christ_ ,” Matt breathes in awe, pupils black with lust. The taller man scrambles to his knees, one on either side of Techie’s hips where his softening prick still lies exposed. The teenager grips his wrist fiercely, refusing to give up his prize and determined to lick up every salty drop and then some – with his other hand Matt shoves his own pants down and _fuck_ , there he is, cock hanging heavy and swollen between his legs, just as big as Techie always imagined him, an easy eight inches hard and so pleasantly thick, meeting Matt’s body at the base in a thatch of surprisingly dark hair. The blond whimpers in relief when he gets a hand around himself, pumping his dick at a brutal pace while he watches his smaller lover clean up with his tongue.

“Wanna…wanna suck you instead,” Techie slurs around his fingers, blinking blissed-out, half-lidded blue eyes up at him. “Wanna taste you in….mmh…my mouth…”

“Shit,” Matt gasps out like he’s been punched in the stomach, “ _shit_ , I want that too- fuck, been thinking about your mouth around my cock since that day in Anderson’s office, Christ, I’m gonna- gonna go find a clinic fucking _today_ , I swear, wanna be inside of you so bad…”

Techie lets go of Matt’s hand, nothing left there but skin and wet saliva – the janitor switches hands to jerk off with the slick one instead, the other pressing down on the mattress for balance. The redhead arches his back underneath him – fuck, but he’s a sight, hair wild against the pillows, black sweater bunched up around his shoulders and soaked sweatpants about his thighs, abused nipples still peaked and dick pink and soft.

“Can I- let me help?” Techie pleads, twisting in a way he hopes is seductive; he can’t look away from the head of Matt’s cock, shiny and slick and disappearing in and out of his fist.

“T-touch my balls?” Matt begs, knees shuffling up a little higher for Techie to reach; he does so without hesitation, cupping Matt’s sac with both hands and rolling his testicles gently. “ _Aahhh_ …fuuuck, yesss,” the blond groans. The student squeezes ever so slightly, feeling out the satisfying weight of them in his palms, the way they draw up towards Matt’s body.

“Ah-hahh…yes, fuck, _yes_ ,” Matt groans, hips torn between jerking into his fist or pressing into Techie’s hands, and with a final stutter he comes onto the teenager’s pale chest, eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Fuck, _fuckfuckfuck._ “ Techie lets out a delighted gasp at the feel of Matt’s hot cum splashing against his skin, the feeling somehow infinitely more satisfying when it’s not his own. He wants to reach out, scoop it onto his fingers and taste it, but post-orgasm he has just enough sense not to – not until Matt has come back clean, at least. Instead he reaches up to cup the blond’s pleasure-slack face between his hands, thumbs stroking soothingly at his cheekbones.

Matt blinks tiredly back at him. “You okay?” he murmurs softly.

“Amazing,” Techie says, smiling.

The blond frowns suddenly. “Shit, I got cum on your sweater…sorry.” He lowers himself down to lie next to Techie, pressing soft kisses and words against his face. “I’ll lend you one of mine and wash yours for you.” The teenager twists onto his side to kiss him properly in place of a reply. Matt smiles back at him.

For a while they lie dozing in bed, sated and content – but eventually, the blond groans, rolling onto his back.

“Much as I wanna stay here with you all day, I gotta get up and get ready for my appointment with Dr. Yoda,” Matt sighs. “But, um. You wanna come over again next weekend? Maybe, um, bring some clothes, spend the whole thing with me?” he adds hopefully.

“Yes,” Techie answers immediately.

The thought of there being more of this, of a next time, makes the idea of leaving Matt’s apartment and heading back to Peach Trees a little easier to bear. It’s later than the janitor thought it was, so leaving the house becomes a bit more of a hasty scramble than either of them would like – back in his skinny jeans and with a dry pair of Matt’s socks stuffed into his yellow converse, Techie borrows one of the blond’s old Academy sweatshirts. They run out into the rain huddled under an umbrella this time, Matt once again holding it over Techie as he ducks into the car.

The drive to Peach Trees passes in companionable if melancholy silence, Matt reaching out for Techie every time he gets a chance to take his hands off the steering wheel.

“Will you, um…can you text me that selfie?” Matt asks shyly at a red light.

“Mhm. Give me your number?” the student says, offering up his phone for the janitor to put his digits in the contact list. Techie saves him as ‘Mattie <3’ when the blond isn’t looking.

Naturally, the one time Techie wishes for some traffic, the roads are almost empty; they arrive just outside the gates of Peach Trees far, far too soon, rain a fitting backdrop still tapping on the windshield. He’s not sure what to say, whether he’ll sound too needy if he says-

“I’ll miss you,” Matt blurts out in that near-angry way of his that Techie is starting to realize means he’s nervous. “Fuck, this week is gonna suck.”

“Text me?” Techie begs. “Tell me how the appointment goes, anything, I’ll miss you too.” He leans across the car to burrow his face against Matt’s shoulder, swallowing up the words it’s far too soon to say – _I need you, don’t go, don’t make me go back, let me stay_.

“Kiss me goodbye properly,” the janitor murmurs, nudging at Techie’s head with his chin. The teenager looks up, parting his lips eagerly to welcome Matt’s tongue with his own. “Mmf- I gotta…I really gotta go, baby, but- next weekend, yeah?”

“Next weekend,” Techie agrees.

Before he drives away, Matt insists on shoving the umbrella into Techie’s hands, an unexpected gentleman to the end. He stands there watching Matt’s blue car disappear down the road and then some, long enough that he shivers in the rain, suddenly acutely alone. He wanders slowly up the hill to where the Hux house sits. Maybe Armitage is done being mad at him by now; maybe he’ll call him and tell his brother that he…

…did he lose his virginity? He sneezes, as always, when he walks through the front door. Do mutual orgasms count, or does someone have to stick their dick in a hole, he wonders absently, so lost in thought as he unlaces his damp shoes that he doesn’t notice the footsteps behind him.

“Techie,” Madeline sing-songs.

He flinches. She pads lightly towards him; her pupils are too wide. There’s something off about the way his mother looks at him, too calm to be real. He hunches his shoulders and waits.

“You were gone last night,” she says, wonderingly. “You didn’t tell me where you went. Brendol asked me and I didn’t know.”

“I…I d-didn’t think you’d nn-notice,” he whimpers softly.

Madeline slaps him. “That’s what you think, is it? You think your own mother doesn’t care about you? Fucking _ungrateful_ little-“ She pauses suddenly and- fuck. Her eyes are on his neck. “Well, _well_. What have we here?” she grins, tugging Techie’s collar aside to reveal the fresh purple love-bites Matt left there this morning. Stupid, _stupid_ -

“Don’t,” he says, pulling out of reach, not wanting her hands tainting Matt’s sweater, tainting _anything_ the man gave him. He walks away, making his escape quickly up the stairs.

“Maybe you _are_ my son after all!” Madeline calls after him with a nasty laugh. “How much did he pay you, huh!? Fucking- get _back_ here, you little _whore_!”

His blood turns to ice in his veins. No, _no_ , he’s _nothing_ like her, he’ll never be like her, he’ll never take a cent of Matt’s money. Techie slams the door to his room shut, locking it and dragging his bedside table in front of it for good measure, pulling the curtains closed. Fuck, he’ll never let Matt buy him pasta again, even, just to throw it back in Madeline’s face that _someone out there cares about him_.

Techie drags his pile of duvets onto the bed, tugging off Matt’s sweatshirt – the better to bury his nose in the older man’s comforting scent – and he hides.

 

*


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry my friends, the smut will be back next chapter. The angst remains pervasive.  
> Also continuing the grand tradition of Kylo Ren typing like an idiot, because that fanfic trope makes me laugh every time.

Kaytoo Esso is an odd man, both inside and out. At almost seven feet tall, the computer studies teacher towers over everyone else in the school, with his strangely proportioned, skinny limbs and overlarge, bald head. He is blunt to a fault and stares at things with wide, still, unmoving eyes for far too long at a time. Currently, his uncomfortably intense gaze is laser-focused on Techie’s AP Programming final proposal.

“It’s adequate,” he says at length.

“…O-only…adequate?” Techie asks, face falling. Mr. Esso turns his head slowly to stare unblinkingly at the student instead.

He sighs through his nose. “Technical, I have every faith that you could program whatever you put your mind to making,” he says flatly, “but I had rather hoped you would use this final as an opportunity to make something more…interesting.”

“It’s a game!” Techie protests.

“It’s a _boring_ game,” Mr. Esso says bluntly. “Don’t misunderstand me. You will likely get full marks if your coding is as immaculate as usual. But nobody is going to want to _buy_ this. Who wants to pay money to play as a janitor cleaning up a high school? _I_ don’t. What’s the point? There’s no goal or motivation for the player.” At the student’s crestfallen expression, the teacher takes rare pity, patting Techie’s head with a heavy, awkward hand, almost mechanical in motion. “Perhaps you should consult our own Mr. Matt – he may be able to offer you some perspective on his dire job.”

“Yes, Mr. Esso,” Techie sighs. Privately, he doesn’t think Matt would much appreciate his job being called “dire”. He shuffles back to his desk in the computer lab. Mr. Artoo gives him an encouraging pat on the back as he passes by; barely reaching five feet, the small, sturdy lab technician makes an odd contrast with the computer studies teacher.

Soon the bell rings and Techie shoulders his bag, walking gloomily through the corridors to wait for Rey outside the science labs, where her physics lessons almost always run late. It’s Monday, which means lunch day with the junior, so he quietly settles himself by the lockers just outside the classroom. Fuck...it's only Monday, and he already can’t wait for Friday; he’d spent the weekend after he got home hiding in his room, only emerging for food when he was sure Madeline was otherwise occupied and Brendol was locked away in his office, binging on World of Warcraft and treasuring the texts Matt sent him. Techie pulls out his phone to look over them again, thumbing open the selfie they took on Saturday with a small, secretive smile to himself. He scrolls through their conversation for the hundredth time:

 

 **_Techie sent IMG_2187.png (16:45)_ **  
**_Mattie <3 (19:31): dr yoda tried to hit me with his cane for being late >:C_ **  
**_Mattie <3 (19:31): old coot_ **  
**_Mattie <3 (19:32): whatever, worth it u3u_ **  
**_Techie (19:32): aw...did it go okay?_ **  
**_Mattie <3 (19:33): he said i seemed calmer today_ **  
**_Mattie <3 (19:33): no shit man, i woke up with a cute boy in my bed ;p_ **  
**_Techie (19:34): lol! mattie!!_ **  
**_Mattie <3 (19:35): what you doing?_ **  
**_…_ **

 

Naturally, in his distraction, that’s when an empty can of soda is thrown at his head, the second Monday in a row that he’s taken an object to the face.

“Hey _traitor_!” Bala-Tik yells, and…fuck, his whole gang is there sniggering behind their leader. Techie quickly shoves his phone in his pocket, rubbing at his forehead. “The hell’s wrong with you, wearing a fucking Academy shirt around here?!”

“That your boyfriend’s sweater?” Unkar Plutt hollers behind him. Techie scowls. He’s about to retort _fuck you, maybe it is_ without a care in the world for self-preservation, but another voice beats him to it.

“His brother went there, losers, it’s his!” Rey yells back. Emerging from the physics lab, she grabs Techie’s sleeve and pulls him along in the direction of the sports fields, calling over her shoulder to the gang still heckling them. “Go and eat dirt or whatever it is you morons do at lunch time!” She marches him at a brisk pace, shoulders stiff and tense. Though they seem to hate the junior with an intensity usually reserved for nerds and snitches, rather than popular, well-liked girls with friends on all the sports teams, the Guavians don't follow; Rey has a propensity for fighting back, and the years of experience training in her father's dojo to actually win.

“U-um…thanks?” Techie says, once they reach the bleachers outside.

Rey turns on her heel to glare at him. “I know the Guavians can’t, but I can do basic fucking math, Techie,” she snaps, jabbing an accusing finger against the black material of Matt’s sweater. “The year on your shirt is two off, so what the _hell_. That is _not_ your brother’s sweater, _or_ Kylo’s even – I know they graduated at the same time so don’t even try that excuse on me.”

“I…I, a-ah…I…borrowed it?” he mumbles quietly, scuffing his trainers against the grass nervously.

The shorter girl looks at him- really looks at him, eyes piercing. “You’re wearing a scarf,” she says slowly. “Techie. _Nobody_ wears a scarf indoors at school, not unless…” His hands wander up defensively towards the heavy, knitted scarf around his neck in case she tries to grab it, but Rey only groans and puts her face in her hands. “ _Techie_. Is this…is this about that older guy? The- the one you were trying to tell me about last week?”

He looks down at his feet and shrugs, cheeks pink.

“ _Urgh!_ ” Rey throws her hands up in the air, stomping up the bleachers. Techie follows mutely. “First Finn, and now _you_ -“

“Wait, first Finn what?” the senior frowns.

Rey huffs, sitting down heavily with her cheeks resting against her fists. “All Finn talks about lately is Poe, Poe, Poe,” she grumbles under her breath. Techie sits next to her gingerly, waiting for her to go on. “And now that Poe’s working at uncle Han’s repair shop, I can’t even escape the guy at home! Aunt Leia invites him over for dinner, like, _every_ day.”

“I thought you _liked_ Poe,” Techie says. Something clicks into place in his mind, and he lets out a little gasp of understanding. “Wait, you _like-like_ Poe!”

“No!” Rey snaps, face red, but her expression quickly crumples. “…Maybe? Ugh, I don’t know. I- um. I like... _like_ -like Finn too, though, but. But they only like each other.”

“So they’re…together now?” Techie asks, hugging his knees.

The junior shrugs, hair buns bobbing with the motion. “Not yet, but…soon, I think. I know I should say something to Finn first, but he’s my best friend, you know? I don’t want to ruin that.” Techie doesn’t know at all, seeing as Rey is his only real friend and he’s known he was gay since the age of twelve, but he nods placatingly anyway. “Anyway, so, um. Your older guy thing worked out, I guess?” Rey says, forcing a smile onto her face.

The senior flushes, hiding his face behind his hair. “Y-yeah, um, it’s. It’s pretty new?”

Kylo’s cousin suddenly narrows her eyes at him. “Does your brother know? Because you know I’m honour-bound to tell Kylo, and _he’ll_ tell Hux. He _better_ already know, if he doesn’t I swear to god this is some shifty shit-”

“He knows, jeez!” Techie squeaks. “Christ, Kylo keeps texting me winky emoticons and asking if I got laid yet. I think they have some sort of running bet going on the details of my life.”

“Yeah, they do that with me, too,” Rey grimaces. “Big jerks. Well, um. Be careful, I guess, okay?”

Too awkward and not nearly close enough to keep talking about boys with each other, the conversation moves on to lighter topics, though Rey still looks a little wistful when Finn appears down on the pitch for practice with the rest of his football team. The junior forces herself to look at Techie instead, but her eyes keep wandering to the scarf around his neck with a little crease forming between her eyebrows each time. Is she…judging him, Techie wonders? He doesn’t think Rey is the type. The rest of the student body, he’s less certain of, and if she instantly arrived at the (correct) assumption that he’s hiding hickeys under his scarf, does everybody else know too?

He’s only an inch or two shorter than his older brother, but on days like this he feels an awful lot smaller, hunching into a slouch and trying to make himself as unassuming and unnoticeable as possible behind the curtain of his hair. For the rest of the day he makes sure to pick a desk at the back of the class, filled with the absurd paranoia that everyone who looks at him _knows_ , thinks he’s some kind of freak or slut or whore.

 _Just like your gold-digging mother_.

By four PM Techie has convinced himself that everyone is looking at his neck, practically running out of the doors when the last bell of the day finally rings. The back of Mitaka’s car has always felt like a little island of safety, the small, dark space between navigating the perils of school and the misery of life at home, and today is no exception; he hunkers down in his seat far enough that the belt digs into his ribs uncomfortably. Mitaka thankfully doesn’t comment on his jittery attitude – he sometimes gets the feeling that the driver’s experience of high school was much the same as his own – and his nerves start to abate ever so slightly. Behind black-tinted windows, no one can see him, or his scarf, or the marks on his skin.

Halfway home, his phone chimes in his bag:

 

**_Mattie <3 (16:10): saw you wearing my sweater at school today  
Mattie <3 (16:10): fuck, you look so good in my clothes, i could just eat you up _ **

****

Warmth blooms in his chest at the message, worries suddenly seeming small and insignificant in the face of Matt’s affection. Techie smiles to himself, quickly tapping back a reply.

****

**_Techie (16:13): you can take all my clothes off of me on friday ; >_ **  
**_Techie (16:13): then you can dress me in whatever you like_ **  
**_Mattie <3 (16:14): little tease_ **  
**_Mattie <3 (16:14): wait is that the chorus to barbie girl lol_ **  
**_Techie (16:14): you can brush my hair, undress me everywhere~ lalala_ **  
**_Mattie <3 (16:15): does that mean i’m your ken doll :p_ **

****

“Oho, who’s _that_ smile for?” Mitaka asks from the front of the car, grinning teasingly at him in the rear-view mirror. “Someone found themselves a girlfriend!” he singsongs.

Techie gives him a shy, wobbly smile and a blush in return, quickly hiding his phone away. “A, um…a boyfriend, actually. Maybe.”

Mitaka’s face falls a little. “Yikes…your dad’s gonna- well. Uh. You already know what Brendol’s like. Don’t worry, buddy, your secret is safe with me.” The driver nods fiercely at him as if to seal his promise.

“Th-thanks,” Techie mumbles. “Uh. Speaking of, I…you don’t need to pick me up on Friday afternoon? Or next Monday morning, I’m gonna…gonna spend the weekend with him, so…”

“Sure thing,” Mitaka says, smiling warmly at him, and the teenager likes to think he sees a hint of pride there. Techie takes the side door of the house again when they arrive back in Peach Trees, determined to avoid his mother and keep hold of the tiny bit of relief the car ride home granted him, holding his breath all the way up to his bedroom, sneakers tip-toeing up the stairs.

The sneezing fit that overtakes him once he locks himself in is overwhelming enough that he has to sit down – since coming back from Matt’s place on Saturday his nose and eyes seem more sensitive to the dog fur floating around the house than ever. It’s pointless to think about; instead, he types out a message to Armitage before settling into his homework.

An hour later, though, despite clearly being online, his brother hasn’t replied. Desperate measures are taken.

**_Techie (17:32:05): is tidge there?_ **  
**_Lord Ren (17:32:54): ya but he says hes still not talkin 2 u_ **  
**_Lord Ren (17:33:17): dnt worry ill talk 2 u_ **  
**_Lord Ren (17:33:43): so did u get laid or wat??? ;D_ **  
**_Techie (17:34:52): oh good god_ **

**_(17:35:00) Hux is calling you._ **

Techie hits the accept call button to find a scuffle happening on the other side of the screen. His brother’s laptop seems to be tilted sideways on the bed, and though Millicent is in full view, watching her owners lazily from atop a pillow, he can only just see limbs flailing to the edges of the camera as Armitage smacks Kylo away.

“The world has a right to know!!” Kylo bellows, before Tidge finally gets a good kick in and shoves his fiancé off the bed with a thump to the floor that shakes the laptop’s camera.

“And _stay_ down there if you don’t want to sleep on the couch tonight!” Techie’s brother snarls, finally shuffling into view and righting the laptop. He turns his scowl to the webcam instead. “And _you!_ Matt Radar? _Matt fucking Radar_? It was _that_ little twerp you were pining after _all along_?! Of all the Matts in the world-”

“I mean, he’s not little, he’s like two inches taller than Kylo,” Techie points out with a shrug, entirely unfazed.

“He’s just pissy because Matt asked me out in high school!” the dark-haired man himself shouts from the floor.

“And you were already mine and I made sure he knew it,” Armitage snaps, crossing his arms with a sniff. “Now ten years later he’s trying to corrupt my sweet, baby brother instead-”

“You know I’m not wearing this scarf because it’s cold, right? There’s no ‘trying’ about it,” Techie interrupts again, quite unable to resist, to a delighted whoop from Kylo in the background and an “ _I fucking told you so!_ ” Millicent gets picked up with an angry meow to be dragged into a victory dance.

“Wonderful,” Armitage hisses murderously. “Do you even know what bet you’ve just lost me? He bet me that Huxes always put out on the first date! And is that- _Technical Hux, is that Matt’s Academy shirt?_ ”

He thinks, maybe, that Armitage keeps talking, but the words are lost in the sudden icy chill that spreads through his body. _Huxes always put out on the first date._ Technically he- didn’t he put out _before_ the first date? They haven’t even had one yet, it’s a secret, no dates, stuck in the apartment, _how much did he pay you, little whore?_ His hands shakily reach for the scarf around his neck, the knitted length of it suddenly feeling like a noose – he’s trembling, his fingers won’t work right, he can’t breathe, strangled, he-

“ _Techie_!” Someone shouts.

He blinks.

Kylo and Armitage are staring at him worriedly on the other side of the screen, both huddled in front of the camera together.

“S-sorry,” he rasps, swallowing past the dryness in his throat. “Did you- did you say ssomething?”

His brother sighs with relief, one hand coming up to rub his temples, while his fiancé’s frown deepens. “We’ve been saying your name for like five minutes!” Kylo says disbelievingly. “What happened!? You totally spaced out there, you were just- _staring_ at the floor!”

“Was it a panic attack? Do you need a moment? Can you breathe?” Armitage adds in an anxious rush. “Sorry, don’t…don’t answer, just breathe, okay darling?” Techie nods numbly, drawing in a long, shaky breath to appease his brother more than anything. He feels suddenly terribly guilty for the worry on their faces; breathing is the least he can do.

“Is it, um. Is it the bet we made?” Kylo asks tentatively, wincing. “Fuck, kid, you know those bets we make are never _actually_ about you and Rey, right? It’s just our dumb way of picking on each other vicariously, you know??”

Feeling like his hands might finally obey him, Techie tugs his scarf loose and lets it fall into his lap. The tiny version of himself he can see in the corner of the screen looks ghostly pale, love bites stark and purple and still so obvious around his collarbone and shoulders two days later. “Mama saw my neck,” Techie says quietly.

He doesn’t need to say anything else. Kylo’s expression darkens in that way it does just before he breaks something, while Armitage’s face goes cold and hard. “ _No_ ,” Tidge hisses furiously. “Whatever she said or did, she’s wrong, you hear me? I’m not going to let her _ruin_ this for you. You date whoever the fuck you want and you hold on for dear life to every piece of happiness you find, Techie.”

“But you said-”

“Who gives a shit what I said!! I told Kylo to eat broken glass this morning for using all the milk! I say a lot of things I don’t really mean! I wasn’t- I’m not mad that it’s Matt Radar, I was just annoyed that I didn’t put it together sooner,” Armitage sighs. “You’re…you’re nothing like her, you know that right?”

“You’re not even like your brother, he’d slept with like, ten people by his sixteenth birthday,” Kylo pipes up unhelpfully. He gets an elbow to the arm for his troubles.

“Four, at most,” Armitage growls. He turns back to Techie with a pained look. “Are you sure you won’t reconsider our offer, sweetheart? I know you wanted to finish high school before moving here with us, but we could at least get you a hotel room somewhere, or a little apartment near school maybe…”

Techie shakes his head tiredly. “It’s too much. And it’s only like, five months left or something, right?” he adds with a weak smile. “And…and besides, I’m staying at Matt’s this weekend, so…”

“Good,” his brother nods. “That’s good. Just…keep away from _them_ as much as you can, yeah?”

“And use a condom,” Kylo says solemnly.

He dodges the elbow Armitage jabs at him this time.

 

*


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, time to update the tags again I guess. This chapter turned out to be a long one! Hope you enjoy, everybody.

Shuffling his weight from foot to foot anxiously, Techie checks his phone for the hundredth time.

At the far end of the school sports fields, there’s a little road covered with trees on one side and a tall, chain link fence on the other to keep would-be hooligans out of a private residential area – it’s here that Matt agreed to pick him up after he finishes work at five, but the teenager has been pacing up and down the row of trees since at least four thirty. So far, only one car has come through this way, driven by a wrinkly, little old woman with glasses to rival Techie’s own and an incredibly orange spray-tan. She gave him a suspicious look as she passed, though he hopes that was more to do with the high school kids that regularly try and jump the fence than anything he’s about to do.

He checks his phone again; ten past five. _Soon_ , he tells himself. Next to him on the ground, his bag is heavy with clothes and toiletries along with the usual textbooks, and – somewhat optimistically – a bottle of lube he managed to pick up from the pharmacy next to school during lunch break (the kind that doesn’t irritate his skin).

Thankfully, only a minute later Matt’s blue car turns down the road, rolling to a stop right in front of him. From the driver’s seat Matt beams up at the student, grin wide and crooked; Techie hurries to pull open the door of the passenger side to crawl across the seat and tug the janitor into a kiss.

“Mm- hey, baby,” Matt purrs against his lips, dragging Techie half into his lap. “Miss me?”

“Uh-huh,” the redhead hums, clinging, needy already, but it’s been such a long fucking week seeing only glimpses of Matt from across the school that he can’t bring himself to feel ashamed. He settles back into his seat and puts his seatbelt on, half-tempted to try and enact the relatively new fantasy he’s been daydreaming the last few days of leaning over and sucking the older man off in his car, but Matt has already pulled away from the curb to drive them back to his apartment. Better not.

“So…I’ve got you all to myself this weekend then?” Matt asks, a little shy, a little anxious. “You brought clothes and stuff, right?”

“Yup. All yours,” Techie smiles coyly, bottom lip between his teeth. Matt takes his eyes off the road for a brief moment to turn to him with a hopelessly pleased expression, the tips of his ears turning bright pink; Techie is suddenly hit with the absurd urge to lean over and bite them. _Control yourself, Hux_ , he thinks to himself sternly.

“I, uh. I’ve got a present for you,” Matt says, a few streets away from home.

And just like that, Techie’s good mood falters, dread creeping in along the seams. _How much did he pay you_? He swallows the lump in his throat, knuckles turning white where they grip at his sleeves. “Oh. What…what kind of present?” he forces out politely.

But the hesitation must be evident in his voice. “It’s nothing big!” Matt reassures him quickly. “It’s- it’s kind of dumb, actually, it’s not even really a…well, you’ll see, we’re here now.” The blond parks in the same spot as last time, locking the car and taking Techie by the hand to lead him into the apartment building. Maybe…maybe if it’s just a small present. That’s not so bad, right? He can deal with that, he can give Matt the benefit of the doubt. He squeezes the older man’s hand tightly in the elevator…but what if Matt is the kind of guy that buys expensive, extravagant presents, calls them ‘nothing big’ out of false modesty? Armitage does that to him every damn Christmas, sends him gifts he can never hope to match and then shrugs like they’re nothing.

“Close your eyes?” Matt asks nervously as he unlocks his front door.

Techie’s brow furrows with worry. “Mattie…”

“C’mon, please? For me?” The blond gets that puppy-dog look on his face again, and how the hell is Techie supposed to say no to that? He closes his eyes and lets the taller man lead him blindly into the apartment, guiding him to sit down on the couch and kick off his shoes. “Wait there a second and put your hands out,” Matt says somewhere to his left, disappearing into the bedroom to get something, which helps Techie’s nerves not at all. From the other room he hears the sound of shuffling; heavy footsteps coming back towards him, and then delicately placed into his open palms is…

…paper? _Oh god, please don’t be plane tickets_ , Techie thinks hysterically, mind instantly filling in all kinds of things that could be printed on a piece of paper; gift certificates? It doesn’t _feel_ like money…

“Okay, open!” Matt says from somewhere above him, and the redhead cracks an eyelid open hesitantly.

He finds himself blinking at a medical letter from Resistance Hospital downtown.

“What… _oh_!” Techie gasps with understanding and an alarming amount of relief. Like Matt said, it’s not even really a present at all; instead, it’s a report with the results of an STD screening, all clear.

“Cassandra- I mean, Nurse Anderson, she helped me get it fast-tracked,” Matt grins uncertainly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I made up this dumb story about a rash on my- and, well, she said she’d help me out if I never talked about it ever again, and…fuck, I don’t mean to pressure you or anything, don’t take it like that! Just, I wanted you to know that, if, _if_ you wanted to- so, like-”

“Why aren’t you naked yet?” Techie interrupts him seriously, standing from the couch to stalk towards the older man and climb him like a tree. Suddenly finding his arms full of amorous redhead, Matt makes a muffled but delighted noise of surprise as the student kisses him fiercely; if only the PE teachers could see Techie now, skinny legs clinging to the janitor’s hips.

“Mmf- mm, baby- _fuck_ ,” Matt groans between kisses. He laughs breathlessly, nipping warningly at Techie’s lips. “Much as I wanna fucking devour you right this instant, I’ve been cleaning toilets all day, baby, I feel super gross right now. Let me shower first?” Techie makes a disappointed noise, but obediently unfurls his thighs from the janitor’s torso, feet sliding back to the ground. “I’d ask you to join me, but…well, you’ve seen that thing, I barely fit in it alone,” Matt adds apologetically, peppering kisses along the shorter man’s forehead.

“It’s okay, go shower,” Techie agrees. The blond gives him one last kiss, tongue sliding gently against his own, before untangling himself with a soft smile and heading into the bedroom.

The teenager flops back onto the couch once he hears the shower start running, chucking his glasses onto the coffee table and lying down with an arm over his eyes. Fuck. _Fuck_. He hasn’t been here five minutes and already he’s half-hard in his pants, already desperate enough to get on his hands and knees and beg pathetically. Maybe…maybe he really _is_ a…what was it Matt said last time? A slut waiting to happen? He’s- he’s not like his mother. Not quite, anyway, because he doesn’t want to be Matt’s sugarbaby, not at all; but he does so very, very much want to be touched and loved and caressed and brought to climax, wants to serve and suck and be used any which way the janitor likes. Is that worse, he wonders, that he doesn’t even want payment for it? That he wouldn’t even mind if Matt took his pleasure and left, so long as it was him the blond took it from?

He startles when the couch dips next to him, moving his arm to find Matt looking down at him, blond curls damp and dripping onto a fresh t-shirt.

“Sorry,” he says gently, tangling one big hand in Techie’s hair where it’s splayed out on the cushions. “Did you fall asleep for a minute there?”

“No, I was just- just thinking,” Techie answers quietly. He shivers as the hand in his hair starts carding along his scalp, nails dragging lightly. “…Mattie?”

“Mhm?”

“Am I…am I bad?” Techie whispers.

Matt’s hand pauses, a frown clouding over his face. “Why would you ever think that?”

“Because I- it’s just-” the redhead makes a frustrated noise, covering his eyes with the heels of his palms and letting it all rush out. “Fuck, I want you to bend me over every single flat surface in this apartment, I want it so bad even though I’ve never fucking _done_ anything before, I just wanna roll over and let you plow me right now and I only just _got_ here and so maybe I really _am_ a whore like my mom said and-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Matt says sternly, “stop right there. _Jesus_ , your mom called you a whore?? Is she- is she one of those religious types or something?”

Techie laughs mirthlessly, blinking away the spots in his eyes. “No, she…she actually used to be a prostitute? Before she had me. I mean, so she would know, right?”

Matt swallows loudly, looking like he doesn’t have a clue where to begin with this confession. “Okay,” he says slowly. “Okay, first of all, you should know that I am very biased, specifically right now, in this moment.” He gently pulls Techie’s hand over to place it on his crotch, where… _oh_. The blond is at half-mast, clearly having come into the room expecting this conversation to have gone in a very different direction. Techie can’t help but give the man’s cock a curious little squeeze, but Matt moves his hand away again before he can do much more.

“You know it’s normal to be all over each other after a week apart, right? You’re not bad, baby; you’re not a whore, you’re just horny, and- and me too, you felt me. Fuck. I thought about you every day, how much I wanted to- just what you said. Every flat surface.” Matt huffs out an unhappy little laugh. “If either of us is bad, it’s me, shit...”

Techie blinks up at him. “What? Why would you be bad?”

Matt sighs, nudging Techie further into the sofa so he can lie down next to him. “Because you’re like…god, you’re only eighteen, and the things I want to do to you…” He bumps their foreheads together and closes his eyes. “I felt so fucking guilty, the first time you sucked my fingers in Anderson’s office, because I wanted you so, so bad, and it was so much hotter because you were a _student_ , and- and that’s fucked up, right?”

“…You know I’m pretty biased here too,” Techie admits softly. “I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t turn me on that you’re older and bigger and more experienced than me.”

“That’s just it- I fucking _love_ that nobody else has touched you before,” Matt groans mournfully. “You’re so pretty and soft and you’re all-” his teeth click shut with an abrupt snap, face going red.

“All what?” Techie prompts, nudging at the blond’s nose with his own encouragingly.

“…All mine?” Matt whispers hesitantly. “Do you- _want_ to be mine?”

Something that feels like an iceberg separating from the polar caps happens in Techie’s chest, melty and warm and monumental. “Honestly?” he grins shyly, “I’ve kinda been yours since I was fifteen.”

The blond closes the distance between them, sighing his relief into Techie’s mouth and pulling the student into his arms. He rolls them over so that Techie is on his back and _oh_ , that’s nice, Matt’s weight on top of him, so much better and heavier and more comforting than his collection of blankets has ever been. The older man kisses him, deep and slow and maddening; with a bit of a shuffle, Techie manages to part his legs to get Matt between his thighs, humming with satisfaction at the brush of their clothed cocks together.

“You’re not a whore, because you’re only mine,” Matt murmurs lovingly against his lips, “I don’t wanna share you with anyone.”

Techie shivers, hands wandering underneath the blond’s shirt. “What if- mmh- I’m a slut?”

“Then you’re _my_ little slut, and I’ll- nnf- just have to keep you satisfied, won’t I?” Matt growls, dragging Techie’s bottom lip between his teeth and tugging. The redhead whimpers, trying to spread his legs wider, needing more of the delicious friction that comes with the restless little movements of Matt’s hips. He slides his hands higher up the muscular planes of the janitor’s back, rucking up the t-shirt until Matt finally obliges him, sitting up just enough to tug it off and throw it carelessly on the floor. The blond begins to duck down to Techie’s neck, teeth bared, but-

“Wait- don’t, um,” Techie stops him, putting his hands out to push Matt away. The delightful bonus of this is that his palms land on the older man’s bare pectorals, spreading out against the firm muscle and _fuck_ , Matt is shredded, just as good and strong as Techie remembers from the first time he saw him and even better up close.

“You don’t like biting?” Matt asks, a little worried crease forming between his eyebrows.

“No, no I do! I definitely do, just, ah- maybe…not on my neck?” Techie says quickly, still a little distracted with running his hands over the solid landscape of Matt’s torso.

“Shit,” Matt grimaces, “sorry, I should have thought of that last time…sorry.” He settles his weight back down on top of the student, kissing apologetically along the thin skin of Techie’s neck, down and down to the dip of his collarbone where he licks into the hollow of it.

“Mmh- you can- you can mark me all you like, other places,” Techie purrs. Trapped under the older man as he is, he can’t move all that much, but he attempts to twist sinuously underneath him nonetheless, aimless but greedy for more of Matt’s body against his own.

“Oh yeah? And what about this?” The blond leans up on one elbow to pull at the hem of Techie’s shirt, smirking down at him. “Can I take this off?” He doesn’t need to ask twice; the redhead hurries to wriggle out of it while Matt helps tug it over his head. With hungry eyes, the janitor gives the man below him an appraising look, reaching out to run his fingertips feather-light over Techie’s ribs. “Fuck…you’re so small under your baggy sweaters…feel like I’m gonna break you or something, all white like porcelain…”

“I won’t break,” Techie promises, pulling Matt against him and yes, _yes_ , that’s just what he wants, skin against skin, so warm. He makes an embarrassing noise that can only be described as a mewl, tipping his head back to press into the couch cushions as the older man’s mouth moves lower and lower, sucking the first of many marks onto the skin above his heart. Techie has always stayed away from drink and drugs, thoroughly put off the idea of them by his addict of a mother, but he wonders if this is how it feels to be drunk, everything buzzing and pleasant and moving slow and syrupy, the only noise in the room the sighs and gasps spilling from his lips and the wet sound of mouth on skin.

The blond latches onto a nipple, sucking gently in a way that goes straight to the student’s groin, while one hand wanders to the fly of Techie’s jeans, absently dragging the zipper open. Damn it, he’s already so hard- he reaches between them to help Matt out, tugging open the button with effort and squirming his hips out of jeans. Matt sits up a little to help him pull them off fully, throwing them on the floor to join the rest of their discarded clothes, leaving Techie in only a grey pair of boxer-briefs.

His wide hands smooth up over the length of Techie’s slim legs, fascinated by the pale, almost translucent red hairs on his shins, the bony jut of his ankles, the softness of his inner thighs. He lifts one calf up to mouth wetly at the skin there, sucking another dark mark against it. “Lovely,” Matt murmurs, dark eyes fluttering shut in bliss, “your legs are so lovely…”

Impatient, Techie hooks his bare legs around Matt’s middle to draw him closer again, missing the feeling of the older man pinning him down already. The blond makes a wonderful rumbling noise in his chest, returning his attention to the pink little nipples on display for him, sucking hard on one while his thumbs stroke carelessly over the younger man’s ribs, then lower, along his sides, down to the waistband of his underwear, dipping under the elastic to trace over his hipbones.

“ _Fff- ahh_ ,” Techie sighs, bucking up against Matt’s abs; he thinks that he could quite happily just rub himself off against the hard muscles there, given the chance.

It all sneaks up on him so unexpectedly.

Suddenly much, much too close to the precipice, heat in his belly and balls drawing up to his body without his permission, Techie gasps loudly, eyes flying open- fuck, what…he’s going to come already, he has to warn Matt, he’s gonna-

A hand cups his balls over his underwear, two fingers pressing back hard against his perineum.

And fuck, _no_ , not already, but he is, he’s coming, crying out, spilling without warning into his briefs, shit, _shit_ , there’s no way Matt won’t notice, not in grey underwear, damp spots rapidly spreading against the cotton, cock pulsing wet and sticky and twitchy while the blond’s hand still cradles his sac through the fabric.

“Shshit, fuck, I’m s-sorry, Mattie I’m so sorry, I didn’t- fuck, sorry, sorry,” Techie chants miserably, slapping both hands over his face to cover the humiliated flush that spreads there. _Stupid, so inexperienced and useless, idiot, should have realized-_

“…Fuck, you needed that so bad, didn’t you?” Matt breathes reverently above him. Behind his hands, Techie blinks, confused. The hand cupping him slides upwards, fingers dragging lightly against the wet patches of cum seeping through, the oversensitivity of it all making his legs jerk. Matt kisses the fingers over his eyes almost apologetically. “That was my fault- I’m sorry, baby, you tried to tell me earlier, didn’t you? How desperate you were, hmm?”

“S-sorry?” Techie mumbles from behind his hands, still baffled with the blond’s reaction, daring to peek up at Matt through his fingers. “’M’sorry, I- I couldn’t…”

“Shh, no, it’s okay,” Matt pries Techie’s hands away from his face, leaning in to kiss his eyelids sweetly. “Don’t be embarrassed, baby, I promise it’s okay, but…I, uh- though, I’m still…can I finish myself off like last time?”

“No!” Techie says indignantly, pouting up at the surprised blond. “No, it’s _my_ turn to get you off,” he insists, pushing at Matt’s shoulder until he rolls over and Techie can crawl on top of him.

“Hell yes,” Matt mutters (mostly to himself) under his breath, pupils fattening until his eyes are almost entirely black, “you, um. Want to. With your hands?”

The student bites his lip to tamp down the grin that threatens to spread across his mouth. “Nuh-uh,” he murmurs coyly, “wanna blow you. That's what my 'present' was for, right?”

Matt makes a strangled noise in his throat, hands snatching out to drag Techie closer – but the teenager dodges with a smirk, stepping back from the couch. First things first: off with his increasingly uncomfortable underwear. He wriggles them down his legs, stepping out of them and wiping his dick off with a dry spot while the blond watches him hungrily, clearly enjoying the show if the hand drifting down to squeeze at the cock still trapped in his sweatpants is any indication. Which leads to the second order of business – getting Matt just as naked as he is.

Techie kneels down on the floor between the coffee table and the couch, patting at the sofa to get the janitor to sit up for him. Matt scrambles upwards, lifting his hips off the cushions for Techie to tug his pants and underwear down – his shaft catches on the waistband before springing back up, heavy and flushed against his stomach, and hell if the redhead’s mouth isn’t watering at the sight of it. He shuffles closer on his knees until he’s inches away from the cock in front of him, and then…

…and then he’s not entirely sure what to do next.

“I…ah. Tell me, um- tell me what to do?” Techie pleads, turning his blue eyes up to Matt’s. The blond stretches an arm out to pet at red hair, cupping the student’s face with his hand. But then he says…

”No.”

Techie blinks, before his expression crumples, betrayed. “Whuh- no? But- why…?”

“Next time,” Matt soothes him, stroking his cheek gently, “I promise, baby, I’ll tell you what to do all you want, show you just what I like, honest. But this is- this’ll be the first time, right?” Techie nods uncertainly. “Fuck, see, I told you I’m a bad person…I want- I really want to watch you just…figuring it out?”

“But- what if I’m no good at it?” Techie protests, anxious, hiding his face against Matt’s thigh.

The blond doesn’t let him hide for long, reaching his other arm out to turn the student’s face upwards again with both hands. “You’ll turn me on whatever you do. Shit, just…just the thought of you playing with my cock, however you like…I’m already so fucking hard and you haven’t even touched it yet,” Matt murmurs, eyes soft and adoring. Techie squints up at him doubtfully. “Give it a try? For me?”

Techie huffs. “Okay, but if I suck it’s your own fault,” he grumbles.

“I mean, it’s a blowjob, you sucking is definitely involved,” Matt says cheerfully, a shit-eating grin on his face. He only laughs when Techie actually growls at him. The Hux in Techie takes great offense to that, giving him the last push he needs to reach out and take the base of Matt’s shaft tight in one hand – and doesn’t that shut the blond up, laughter melting into a sudden, sharp hitch of breath.

It feels…different from his own, somehow, thicker, angle upside down or wrong way round. He tugs the foreskin over the head experimentally, up and down a couple of times, a little looser than his, maybe; above him, Matt sighs contentedly, sinking back against the couch. Licking his lips in anticipation, Techie closes his eyes and just drags his wet mouth lightly along the shaft – right at the base where the length meets his sac in a tuft of dark, wild hair, the smell of Matt is strongest, faintly soapy from his shower but a little musky too; he breathes in deeply, savouring the scent, before giving a hesitant, sucking, sideways kiss to the root of the blond’s cock.

Matt groans, a hand tangling in Techie’s hair, twitching with the need to guide him; but this is what he asked for, after all. Almost vindictively, the redhead moves lower instead to mouth wetly at his balls, laving over each globe before pressing his tongue flat against the skin to push his testicles apart, earning a delightful noise from deep in the older man’s ribcage. He liked Techie playing with his balls last time, didn’t he? But there’s still eight inches of cock to explore, so he moves on, kitten-licking his way up the shaft in a way that makes Matt’s thighs twitch.

Sucking just the tip into his mouth, Techie finds that he rather likes the texture of Matt’s cockhead against his tongue, smooth and velvety and salty with precum, the way when he bobs his head just a little the ridge of it pops in and out from his lips. The blond curses nonsensically, fingers tightening against the student’s scalp; he must be somewhat on the right track, then. Stroking his tongue up the frenulum and along the slit and down again earns him even more desperate muffled, pleasured noises.

“Fuck, look at me,” Matt begs, voice strained. “Please.” Techie attempts to make a show of it, turning his blue eyes upwards just as he leans down, slowly taking as much of the blond’s shaft in his mouth as he can – which doesn’t feel like awfully much; he feels his gag reflex protest much earlier than he’d like, but he gets a good four inches down the length at least, hollowing his cheeks and sucking while he blinks up innocently at his older lover, his hands making up for the rest. Matt bucks up helplessly into his throat at the sight (and, okay, Techie gags this time, but he’d honestly be more surprised if he didn’t at least once during his first blowjob). He can’t quite get the rhythm of it right, can’t concentrate on both breathing noisily through his nose and bobbing and sucking and licking and tugging what he can’t swallow all at once – instead he finds himself picking one or two at a time, alternating between keeping his head down with hard, long sucks and jerking Matt off, or lapping messily while he pauses for breath, saliva following his tongue away in wet strands.

“Keep going,” the blond pants encouragingly, “’m getting close, baby…”

The redhead decides in this moment that, yes, screw it all, he very much loves sucking cock, specifically Matt’s cock, the beautiful way the older man is falling apart all because of him, the slightly bitter, salty taste of it all, the feel of his tongue sliding up and down his lover’s foreskin as he bobs his head, mentally begging his gag reflex to let him swallow down just a little more each time, fuck, please, he wants all of it, thick and heavy against his palate, jaw aching. He moans long and low around the dick in his mouth, greedy for more, he wants to make Matt come so bad, wants to _choke_ on it all, wants to do this for hours and hours.

“Fuck,” Matt hisses, thighs tensing up, “fuck, _fuck_ , if you don’t want me to come in your mouth you’d better- ah- _ahh_ \- I’m gonna-”

Techie keeps his lips firmly wrapped around the blond’s cock as he comes, cum shooting warm and salty down his throat while Matt’s hand spasms in his hair, eyes and teeth clenched as he curses loudly. The taste isn’t so different from his own, but fuck, the older man comes so _much_ – so much that he finds himself opening his mouth to gasp for air as the last ropey streams of seed hit his tongue, dribbling down his chin. He keeps suckling at the tip, ever so gently, as Matt comes down, determined to milk the last of it out, until the hand in his hair tugs weakly at his scalp, cock between his lips twitching with oversensitivity.

Matt’s head tips backwards heavily against the top of the sofa. “Ohmygod,” he only just manages to pant out, “fuu-uucking hell. That was. Hhnnhh.”

Techie hums happily, smiling like the cat that got the cream – maybe literally, in this case, if he’s feeling dirty enough. With his eyes half-closed, he nuzzles his face against Matt’s thigh, tempted to purr himself, head resting comfortably in Matt’s lap while the blond drags his fingers through long red hair repetitively and his big cock slowly softens.

“Take-out and naked video games?” Matt suggests drowsily.

“Take-out and naked video games,” Techie agrees.

 

*


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of your lovely comments everyone! I'm sorry I'm so slow replying, the day job has been kicking my ass lately, but here's some smut for you anyway. I've never written rimming before, hopefully it's not too off the mark haha.

Someone is kissing his forehead, and while it’s very nice, Techie is still _tired_ , damn it, so he screws his eyes shut and pretends to be asleep.

It works for a little while – his someone keeps kissing his face softly, and it’s light and warm and gentle enough to lull him almost back to sleep for real – but they soon start moving to more insistent kisses, along the ticklish skin of his neck and up to his ears.

Then they start nibbling.

“ _Mmgghh_ ,” Techie whines unhappily, squirming away from the feeling, “five more minutes…”

Above him, Matt laughs softly. “Okay, baby,” he says, and though his eyes are closed, Techie can hear the smile in his voice. “You sleep as long as you want. I’m gonna get up now, ‘kay?” He presses a chaste kiss to Techie’s lips, and the student hums in sleepy acknowledgement. The bed shifts as Matt gets up; the redhead wriggles his way into the warm spot he left behind, burrowing further under the duvet with a contented sigh. At some point in the night, he must have kicked off his sweatpants, the sheets moving smooth and cottony against his bare legs. Vaguely, he registers the sounds of Matt moving about the house – the flushing of the toilet in the bathroom, tip-toeing like an elephant through the bedroom, the clink of cutlery on a bowl in the kitchenette – but mostly he dozes, wrapped up safe in the comforting scent of his lover’s bed.

He’s not sure how much longer he sleeps – only that when he finally does wake up, it’s quiet in the house. Maybe it was long enough that Matt left for his appointment with Dr. Yoda already…he hopes not. The night before comes back to him slowly; after sucking Matt off, naked video game time hadn’t lasted all that long before it got too cold and pyjamas were acquired. Which was probably for the best, considering that Techie didn’t really care to answer the door to the delivery guy naked – he’d insisted on paying for dinner this time, and he and Matt had shared a pizza, spending the rest of the evening curled up together on the sofa watching movies. Sitting up groggily to go and investigate the whereabouts of his boyfriend, Techie yawns widely, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with his knuckles, padding softly into the living room where…

…where Matt is sitting at the little table for two in the kitchenette, giving him a very odd look.

“What?” Techie asks blearily.

“Hm?” Matt hums distractedly, eyes dark as his pupils wander down the student’s bare legs. “Oh…nothing. Just. You. In just my sweater. What, uh. What happened to your sweatpants?”

“Got too hot last night,” Techie shrugs, the way the blond is looking at him suddenly piercing through the morning fog in his brain. A small smile slowly stretches over his mouth, an idea flickering to life. “…‘Just’ your sweater, huh?”

Slowly, carefully, making a show of it, Techie’s hands wander underneath the hem of the sweater. Hooking two fingers over the waistband of his underwear, he leisurely pushes them down, down over his thighs, bending at the waist to drag them down the long length of his legs until they finally fall at his feet, stepping out of them delicately. Matt’s sweater is big enough on him that his crotch is still covered – though only just.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Matt curses loudly, kicking his chair away from the table with a screech across the floor. He spreads his arms in invitation, and rumbles, “ _Come to Daddy_.”

Oh.

 _Oh_. Well that. Certainly awakened _something_ , Techie thinks deliriously, knees suddenly feeling weak and blood dropping south like a stone. But instinct got him this far, so he decides to go with it, falling heavily to his hands and knees on the floor and unhurriedly crawling the length of the living room; it’s entirely worth it for the broken ‘ _hnngh’_ Matt whines out, sleep shorts rapidly tenting between his spread legs.

Cat-like and sinuous, he finally reaches Matt’s feet, looking up into the blazing lust clear in the older man’s face. He puts his hands on Matt’s left knee, using it to drag himself up from the floor to straddle one thigh, squeezing it between both of his own. Like this, in just a sweater, his soft, bare balls brush over the blond’s skin, tickled by the leg hair there; looping his arms over Matt’s shoulders, he uses the hold as an anchor to drag his hardening cock backwards and forwards over the man’s muscular thigh, rutting against his leg, slowly, lightly, wanton.

“Good morning, Daddy,” Techie whispers.

And even though he started it, that just about breaks Matt, because he snaps then, one hand tangling too hard in Techie’s hair to drag him into a bruising, filthy kiss, the other grabbing for his ass to yank him closer, squeezing at the soft flesh in a way that will surely leave bright red handprints.

“What the fuck even _are_ you?” Matt growls into his mouth near angrily, between biting at his lips and sucking hard at Techie’s tongue. “How the _fuck_ are you real??”

He pulls away suddenly, leaving the student panting desperately in his lap to sweep the kitchen table clear with one arm, shoving all of the textbooks he’d been poring over while Techie slept to the floor in a noisy crash.

“Get on the table,” Matt orders, “I’m gonna eat you for breakfast.”

Techie scrambles to obey; fuck, this morning is awakening all sorts of things in him, it seems, because the commanding tone of Matt’s voice goes straight down his spine to settle as a burning need between his legs and _yes, yes, eat me up, I’m all yours_. He sits back on the table – but then the blond growls, standing up to flip him over and manhandle the redhead to his liking.

“Hands and knees, baby,” Matt corrects him sternly, and fuck, _fuck_ , his ass is in the air like this, cock hard and stiff between his legs, naked and exposed with the blond behind him. With one hand on Techie’s hips to help keep him balanced, Matt’s other hand pushes down between his shoulder blades, guiding the upper half of his body against the table and that’s even _worse_ , making his hips angle upwards, his hole bare and vulnerable.

“There we go,” the blond rumbles with satisfaction, smoothing his hands up and down Techie’s back, rucking up the sweater a little more each time until it’s bunched up past his shoulder blades. “Look at you- god, you have such a pretty back,” Matt murmurs nonsensically. Techie’s never heard of someone having a pretty back before, but the compliment makes him feel warm and precious anyway, moaning quietly against the tabletop in reply. “So narrow and smooth…”

The blond’s wide hands massage up and down his flanks, slowly ending lower and lower until he’s kneading and palming the flesh of Techie’s tiny, round ass in his hands, spreading his cheeks apart before squeezing them together again and again.

“There’s- _ah_ \- s-some lube in my bag?” Techie offers shyly when Matt’s thumbs start to wander closer and closer to his rim, stroking lightly and gently tugging in time with the fingers playing with his ass. _Fuck, get on with it already, just finger me, come on_ , Techie thinks impatiently.

“Maybe later,” Matt says, low and husky- and then, thumbs holding the student open, he licks a wet stripe over Techie’s hole.

Techie yelps at the unexpected sensation, spine tensing – behind him, a chair screeches along the floor, Matt settling down behind him, breath ticklish against his sensitive rim.

“Told you,” he rumbles against the top of the student’s thigh, “gonna eat you up,” and then his tongue is back again, hot and wet and licking flat and wide, over and over in broad, firm strokes.

The redhead shudders under the attention; he’s not entirely sure what to make of the new feeling of being eaten out, clenching and puckering with each pass of the older man’s tongue. “M-Mattie, that’s- hh- that’s _dirty_ , I haven’t-“

“You showered last night before bed,” Matt murmurs, mouth still right up against his hole and oh, that feels…good? Definitely good, the vibrations of the blond’s voice settling somewhere tightly in his tailbone. “S’fine, baby.”

Still, Techie can’t help but feel like they’ve missed a step somewhere here. Starting with handjobs last Saturday and rubbing up against each other on the sofa yesterday, he’d expected, but Matt’s mouth hasn’t even _touched_ his cock yet – shit, he’d expected that fingering and fucking would come after blowjobs, never mind rimjobs. But…but fuck, he _likes_ it, feeling somehow more illicit for having skipped those other things first, spread out for the taking on Matt’s kitchen table, thighs wide open.

The older man’s tongue presses at him insistently, alternating between fast, flicking licks with the tip and then slowly circling his rim, round and round while his long nose pushes up against his tailbone. And the _noises_ – the messy suck and slurp of Matt’s mouth on him is so loud in the little kitchenette, chin spit-slick and saliva smearing down Techie’s perineum. Matt seals his mouth over his hole and sucks, hard, before delving in further, and fuck, fuck his tongue is _inside of him_ -

“Ffhh- Matt- _ah_ ,” Techie whines, back arching and pushing his ass further against the older man’s face. The longer Matt licks at him, the more sensitive his rim seems to feel, fluttering under the attention as the blond’s thumbs tug him open a little wider, tongue a little deeper, a little more. But as wonderful as it feels and as much as each wet lick makes his cock twitch, it’s not _enough_. He wants- he needs Matt to touch him, stroke his shaft, suck has scrotum, _something_. Surreptitiously he tries to lower his hips a little – if he can just brush his cock against the tabletop, maybe-

“ _No_ ,” Matt growls, yanking his hips up again, and Techie whimpers as the growl travels up his spine. “Wanna make you last,” he says, returning to his task with renewed vigour. And- and okay, Techie came way too fast yesterday, but this is _torture_ , amazing and good and so, so hot but still too new and weird to come from alone.

“M-Mattie, please,” Techie begs into the table. He feels it, acutely somehow, as a drop of precum oozes from his slit onto the surface below in a long, sticky strand. “More, Mattie- please, I n-need-“

“You wanna come, baby?” Matt rumbles into his rim, kissing sloppily there.

“ _Yes_ ,” Techie lets out an agonized moan. But the older man doesn’t give in, continuing to dip his tongue into the redhead’s hole, thrusting in and out with it, breaching as far as Matt can go and _god_ Techie wants a finger, two, a cock, it’s not _enough_ , so good and so close to what he wants but so far, too. “Mmmaaatt, _please_!” Still no dice; the blond fucks his tongue in and out faster, spit dribbling down Techie’s overheated skin and tickling his balls. “Fuck, please, let me come, I wanna- please, I need it, need to come,” Techie begs, changing tack, because maybe that’s what Matt’s waiting for. His only response is an obscenely loud slurping noise as Matt sucks at his puffy rim. “ _Daddy, please_!”

In the space of about three seconds, Matt gets an arm under Techie’s stomach and flips him onto his back on the table.

He has a brief moment of clarity to think _huh, so that’s the magic word_ , before Matt’s warm mouth is on his cock instead and oh, _oh_ , shit that’s exactly what he wanted, one hand holding his splayed thighs open and the other pressing a thumb up against his abused hole and it’s so wet, tongue lapping noisy and messy against his slit before Matt swallows him down almost whole and-

Techie arches his back with a loud cry, spilling into Matt’s throat and fuck, yes, god, this is even better than his hand last time, sanity slipping away with every spasm of his cock. He feels so dizzy, so good, blue eyes rolling up to the ceiling as Matt finally pulls off and stands over him, wiping at his mouth with the back of a hand.

“Lube in your bag, you said?” Matt huffs out, still so hard in his shorts.

Techie nods up at him dreamily. The older man stumbles in his hurry to get to the student’s bag, still by the front door – Techie thinks he might stub his toe on the coffee table on the way back over judging by the bang and the grumbled little curse, but he’s still too high and sated to really follow what Matt’s doing. Soon the blond trips back into his field of view, lube in hand and fumbling with the cap.

“Mm, you wanna- you wanna fuck me?” Techie asks, smiling, eyes half-lidded as he watches Matt struggle to get his shirt off and shove his shorts down. The redhead puts his hands behind his knees, splaying his legs open further invitingly.

“Nuh-uh,” Matt grunts, “want you now,” he says, roughly squeezing out a dollop of lube onto his hand and smearing it over his cock without even waiting for it to warm up. _You can have me now_ , Techie thinks to himself with some confusion, still lying back lazily on the table.

The older man’s intentions suddenly become clear when he grabs Techie’s thighs and pushes them together, lifting his calves up to rest over one shoulder. “Cross your legs,” Matt orders, voice hoarse. Once Techie does, he pushes his cock between the thickest part of the student’s thighs (which, with his skinny frame, isn’t awfully much) and oh, _oh_ , so that’s what his lover wants – Techie does his best to squeeze his legs together tightly. Matt groans with satisfaction above him, arms wrapped firm around Techie’s knees to keep him still as he starts to fuck his thighs.

The blond thrusts hard enough to rattle the table against the wall, panting with effort; hands darting out to grab the edge of the table, Techie watches the head of Matt’s cock disappearing in and out from between his legs, shiny and slick, trying to push his hips back to meet him, anything to help in some small way. The look Matt’s giving him is so heavy and intense, he almost wants to turn his head away, embarrassed and laid bare under his gaze, but still riding the high of his own orgasm he licks his lips and then the ridges of his teeth slowly, feeling brave enough to try and egg the blond on.

“Want you to fuck me this hard for real,” Techie murmurs. “Fffucking- big cock in my ass,” he stammers, blushing.

Matt groans loudly, hips picking up speed, balls slapping noisily against the back of Techie’s thighs. “Keep talking,” he grunts out between heavy breaths.

“Mm, you want- you want that, Mattie? Stretch me open on your dick so wide, make me scream for you, come inside of me and fill me up,” Techie continues, rambling, “all yours, Daddy.”

“Fuck, Techie- _baby_ ,” Matt pants, and apparently the daddy thing really does it for him this morning because he comes with a yell then, pressing forward as Techie squeezes his legs tighter one last time, cum spurting messy and plentiful over the redhead’s stomach. Watching the head of his cock twitching between his thighs, Techie lets out a delighted gasp, reaching out to smear some of the cum on his chest onto his thin fingers and sucking one noisily for show.

Matt droops against Techie’s legs, laughing breathlessly. “You’re unreal,” he murmurs.

“In a good way?” Techie asks uncertainly.

“In the _best_ way,” Matt reassures him, peeling the redhead’s thighs apart so he can lean down in between them and rest his weight heavily on Techie’s chest, heedless of the cum there. He gives his smaller lover a lazy, open-mouthed kiss, still tasting a little of the student’s own cum from earlier.

“Can we, um. Can we, though?” Techie mumbles shyly against his lips. Matt hums questioningly. “I, ah. I really do want you to fuck me? Soon?”

Matt sighs, rubbing his face against Techie’s like a cat, eyes closed. “Not this weekend,” he says eventually.

Techie frowns worriedly. “Why not? Is it-”

Before anything else can come out of his mouth, Matt presses a finger firmly against Techie’s lips. “Because I’m too big, baby, and you’ve never taken anything before,” he says evenly.

“I’ve used my fingers!” Techie protests.

Matt arches an unimpressed eyebrow. “How many?”

“Like…two,” the student admits with a pout, turning away with a huff.

“Mhm,” Matt nods knowingly, nuzzling his face into Techie’s hair. “That’s what I thought. I want it, Techie, I promise, don’t think I don’t- we’ll work up to it, okay? Like- like I said. Take it slowly.”

Techie nods, a little sadly. Somehow it’s worse and more annoying that he knows Matt is right, but then the blond starts sucking at his earlobes and…and okay, maybe he doesn’t mind so much. He can be patient.

“Mmf…what time is it, anyway? How long did I sleep?” Techie asks, stretching out under the blond along the little table. Matt looks up, squinting at the clock on the DVD player in the living room.

“ _FUCK_!” he bellows suddenly, pushing away from Techie and tripping on the shorts still around his ankles as he runs madly into the bedroom.

So…time for Dr. Yoda, then. Techie can’t help it; he laughs.

 

*


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh-oh, here comes Madeline...
> 
> Some of you have asked whether I have a tumblr or not. I do, but for work-related reasons I can't have it associated in any way with my fanfics. I thought about making a sual-specific side tumblr, but...I'm lazy haha. But know that I'm totally snooping around the Kylux and Techienician tags on there!!

“Hey, uh…Techie?” Rey whispers.

The older student lets out a quiet ‘mhm?’ in reply. Today the rain is back, so lunchtime finds them furtively eating in a dark corner of the computer labs instead of on the bleachers, trying not to attract suspicion or attention from either Mr. Artoo or Mr. Threepio. Techie is, at least, doing some work – he’s been on a roll with coding his game since yesterday, when he’d spent the afternoon doing homework lying across Matt’s lap while the janitor studied for his electrician qualification.

“Have you ever, like. Thought about dating more than one person at a time?” Rey continues quietly, shuffling awkwardly in her seat.

Techie blinks up at her, scandalized. “What, like _cheating_?!”

“Shhh!” the girl hisses. “ _No_ , not cheating, like- like three people. Together.”

The redhead looks up at the ceiling, considering this. Tellingly, the first thing that comes to mind is two Matts at once, split apart like some sort of amoeba. That might be nice, he guesses, in the bedroom at least; he’s always sort of liked the idea of being spitroasted. But that’s _definitely_ not a line of thought to follow during lunchtime at school – he turns his face away from Rey to hide the furious blush that spreads there.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “I can’t really imagine it, I guess? Like- like what if I loved one person more than the other? I’d feel guilty.” He frowns, thinking about Matt bringing someone else into the thing they’ve got going on, immediately deciding he hates the idea. “And, um…I think I’d be too jealous anyway. I’m like Armitage like that, I guess; I’d want them all to myself.”

Rey makes an unhappy noise, poking mournfully at her sandwich, less eating the thing than just tearing bits of bread off here and there. Techie turns to look at her fully; slumped over in her chair, there’s none of the usual brightness to the girl. Even her signature hair buns seem somehow half-hearted.

“Did, ah…did something happen? With the Poe and Finn thing?” Techie asks hesitantly.

Rey sighs deeply, finally giving up on the remains of her sandwich and pushing its sad carcass towards Techie in offering. He’s not really sure he wants it now, despite it being peanut butter and jelly. “Poe, uh…he told me last night at dinner that he’s polyamorous,” Rey admits. “I don’t know whether to tell Finn or not.”

“Isn’t that, like…the perfect solution to your whole love triangle thing, though?” Techie points out, confused.

“Well, _yeah_ , but only if Finn and I turn out to be poly as well,” Rey argues back with a scowl. “And that’s assuming either of them even _wants_ to date me.”

It all sounds like a big hassle to Techie. Honestly, he only had his first kiss a few weeks ago, how is he supposed to know what to do? “Have you talked to Kylo about it?” he asks, neatly sidestepping the issue.

“No offense, but Kylo asked your brother to marry him,” Rey says, a slight grin tipping her mouth up crookedly, which is some sort of improvement at least. “I’m not taking _any_ relationship advice from that doofus.”

“Oh, Tidge is all bark and no bite. He’s not so bad,” Techie says mildly, turning back to his code with a smile.

“Yeah, with _you_ maybe,” Rey grumbles. “I’m still traumatized from the time I overheard him lovingly telling Kylo he wanted to cut out his heart and keep it in a box. I was only seven, Techie! _Seven_!”

“What can I say, he’s a romantic. And anyway, Kylo still has his heart…for now,” he grins widely. Rey laughs and punches him lightly in the shoulder. She not so subtly drags her sandwich back, putting one of the torn off bits into her mouth and chewing loudly.

“So, are you doing something new with your eyes, then?” Rey asks, abruptly changing the subject.

“…My eyes?” Techie repeats.

“Yeah. They look a lot better today.” She pauses in her sandwich demolition to rummage around in her backpack, presenting the senior with a round pocket mirror. “See?”

He blinks back at his reflection. Now that she mentions it, they _do_ look a little better today – not nearly as raw and red as usual, just a little too pink and puffy to be completely normal. And…come to think of it, he’d only used his eyedrops twice over the weekend, both times before bed and out of habit more than actually needing them to soothe the near constant itch.

“…Huh,” Techie breathes. “Well, I, um. I spent the weekend at m…my boyfriend’s house? And- and he doesn’t have any dogs or cats, so...”

“You still haven’t told me anything about this guy,” Rey says accusingly. “Boyfriends officially now, huh?”

“K-kinda?” Techie shrugs bashfully. “He, um. He’s really tall? Not Mr. Esso tall, like a little bigger than Kylo. And…he’s twenty-six I think? He’s training to be an electrician. I, um- I kinda wanna keep this just between us though, o-okay?”

Rey nods somberly. “I get it. Guavians, huh?”

“Y-yeah! Exactly.” That’s not it at all, but he’ll take it.

For the rest of the day he can’t help but poke and prod at his eyelids, marvelling at just how _good_ they feel. With all of Madeline’s dogs he’s become so used to them itching and hurting and swelling up, but now that Rey has pointed out what a weekend at Matt’s has done for them he’s suddenly deeply aware of the comfort and ease with which he blinks.

Unfortunately, he’s also acutely aware that he’ll have to go home again at the end of the day, back into the miasma of dog hair that makes up the Hux household. This time, there are no love bites for his mother to see – not anywhere visible, anyway – but as Mitaka drives him back to Peach Trees, he can’t shake the feeling that she’ll have something new and awful waiting for him at home.

He creeps around the house to the side entrance, carefully unlocking the door so as not to make a sound, pinching his nose and holding his breath like usual. So far, so good; he can’t hear anyone else in the house, and nothing seems to be waiting to jump out at him.

Then the closing of the door makes one dog bark, and suddenly _all_ of them are barking. Techie curses to himself under his breath, getting ready to run up the stairs to his bedroom and hide, when one of the dogs barrels into the room.

A big dog. A very _furry_ dog. A dog he has definitely, absolutely never seen in the house before.

Seeing Techie and apparently deeming his skinny, terrified frame not to be a threat or an intruder, the dog relaxes and waddles up to him, wagging its tail excitedly. Most of Madeline’s dogs have the sense not to approach Techie, since it usually results in violent, noisy sneezing rather than a reward of food or scratches; this one blinks up at him, almost confused, with its big droopy eyes and jowls and a blue tongue hanging out its mouth – a Chow Chow, he thinks this type of dog is called, though where the hell Madeline got one is anyone’s guess.

And speak of the devil. He looks up into the main hallway, finding his mother leaning against the doorframe to the living room. She has that glazed look in her eyes again that means she’s taken some kind of downer, but her gaze is focused right on him, lip curled in challenge, daring him to say something.

Instead he looks down at the poor dog, giving it a tentative pat on the head. “It’s not your fault,” he murmurs to it apologetically, quiet enough that Madeline can’t hear. Drawing himself up shakily to his full height, he tries to walk calmly up the stairs to his bedroom, leaving his mother and her menagerie of dogs to their domain in the living room.

It’s…it’s not the worst thing she could have done, he tells himself, deflating against the door. And at least there had been the buffer of school between leaving Matt’s house and coming home this time. But his eyes are already starting to burn again, and he’d better wash his hands before he accidentally touches one and it swells up. He considers texting Armitage to complain about the new dog, but…what good would it do? His brother will just get angry all over again, and there’s nothing he can do to help so far away in Imperial City. Maybe Matt? Is dating for a week and a bit too soon to start complaining about his home life to his boyfriend?

He chances it anyway, the need to get it off his chest greater than his anxieties:

 

_**Techie (17:33): ugh my mom got another dog :/** _  
_**Mattie <3 (17:34): ???** _  
_**Mattie <3 (17:34): i thought you were really allergic to dogs??** _  
_**Techie (17:34): yeah, i am** _  
_**Techie (17:35): i'm used to it though, she’s got 15 of them** _  
_**Techie (17:35): well, 16 now i guess** _  
_**Mattie <3 (17:36): what the actual fuck** _

 

Before Techie can reply, the screen flashes with a notification that Matt is calling him. They haven’t done phone calls so far, so frowning in confusion, Techie picks up with a tentative, “Hello?”

“Why the _fuck_ does your mom have so many dogs??” Matt immediately yells.

“Wh…why are you shouting?” Techie says, cringing back even though Matt isn’t there with him.

The volume the older man bellows back at is near deafening. “Because you’re fucking _allergic_ to them!! _What the hell_ , baby?!”

Techie winces, holding the phone a little away from his ear. “C-can you, um- please s-stop yelling…”

Matt takes a long, noisy breath on the other side of the phone. “Sorry,” he says, a little less aggressively. “Shit, I’m sorry, Techie, I just- I mean I kind of guessed your mom was nuts after you told me she called you a whore, but I didn’t- fuck, baby, I didn’t realize she was like, _actively_ harming you-”

“It’s…it’s not a big deal,” Techie shrugs helplessly to himself, crawling under one of his duvets for some abstract idea of protection. “It’s just allergies. I, um. I get by? She’s had dogs since I was six-”

“ _That’s not okay!!_ ” Matt roars. “It’s not _‘just’_ fucking allergies when you don’t even have to-“

“ _Why are you so angry!?”_ Techie shouts back. He flinches at the sound of his own voice, so loud beneath the covers, tears gathering automatically at the corner of his eyes. “S-s-sorry, I- I-”

“No, _no_ , Techie,” Matt sighs, audibly deflating. “I’m not angry at you, baby, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to shout, I…I’m really worried, okay? I told you, whenever I’m scared I just…I just go right back to yelling and breaking stuff. Fuck.”

“You don’t have to worry,” Techie says quietly, trying not to sniffle. “I- I have eyedrops for the swelling, and, and these pills for when it gets really really bad. And- and my eyes are a lot better after staying with you, s-so, i-it’s only four nights until I can go back to yours, it’s really not so bad…”

For a long moment, Matt is completely silent. He takes a breath like he’s about to start speaking, but nothing comes; instead, Techie hears him slowly release it, defeated.

“Answer me completely honestly,” he says finally, tone just barely even. “Did your mom get another dog to punish you, yes or no.”

Techie opens his mouth to deny it, but the word won’t come. Because isn’t that exactly what the dog downstairs is? Petty, vicious revenge for trying to step out of Madeline’s control, in this house where she can blackmail Techie and Brendol into doing whatever the fuck she wants? Punishment for trying to find some semblance of happiness while she’s stuck in a misery of her own making?

“Yes,” he whispers.

On the other end of the phone, Matt takes a shaky breath. “And…and your dad?” he grits out. “Doesn’t he _do_ something?”

“He…” Techie swallows loudly. “He doesn’t believe in allergies. H-he th-thinks it’s all in mmy head and-” _and the first time I mentioned it he hit me so hard I nearly blacked out, ‘for being weak’_ , Techie can’t get out past the lump in his throat. Instead he chokes, beginning to sob quietly under the safety of his duvet.

“Baby…” Matt says softly, so soft and worried, and that just makes him cry harder. “You…you know this is like…abuse, right?”

“W-why ddo y-you think mmy b-brother tried to- to get custody of m-me,” Techie retorts through his tears, sniffling loudly. “N-nobody was gonna- gonna g-give custody of an _eight_ year old t-to an eight-t-teen year old with n-no _job_.”

“Do you- should I come pick you up?” Matt asks desperately. “Do you want to stay with me instead?”

“I…” Techie swallows past the snot. “I- I c-couldn’t. We’ve only just, like…”

“Fuck, sorry,” Matt says. “I get- kind of intense, shit. Hah, I’m basically asking you to move in with me after only a week, huh?” Though Techie can tell he’s trying to make light of it, there’s something unhappy and self-deprecating in his voice.

“No, no, it’s not that! I just- I don’t wanna like. Be dependent on you? Is that weird?” Techie whispers. “I don’t…um. Want to be a sugarbaby.”  

Matt is quiet for a moment before he replies, sounding a little bewildered by the student’s reasoning. “I mean, moving in with me to escape your psycho parents is a totally different thing, but…sure?” He huffs. “Maybe…maybe I wouldn’t mind taking care of you, you know?”

Techie sighs. “Mattie, I like you a lot – like really, really a lot – but if I was gonna move in with you, I’d want to be paying my half of the rent and food and bills. I…I told you about my mom, right? How she- how she used to be an escort. That’s how my dad met her, and- and I never, ever, _ever_ want to end up like her, just…stuck in a house, dependent on someone else with no money of my own.”

“Okay,” Matt says unhappily. “I get that, but. But don’t think this conversation is over, okay!? If your mom does anything else like this on purpose, I don’t give a shit, I’m getting you out of there whether you can help with rent or not. I, um. I really like you too, okay? So- and I’m your boyfriend now, so I’m allowed to care about you and keep you safe, so…so there!”

The student laughs at the childishness of that, wiping at his eyes with the back of one hand. “Thank you, Mattie,” he says softly, heart swelling.

“Yeah, well,” Matt grumbles, “don’t thank me yet, I’m still fucking worried about you, in that house with your mom…”

“It’s okay, I promise,” Techie soothes him. “The dogs aren’t allowed in my room, and I’m in there with my computers most of the time. And- and I’ll be at yours the whole weekend again.”

“Good,” the janitor says gruffly. Then, more quietly, “Miss you already, baby.” He hangs up abruptly, as if he’s afraid Techie won’t say it back.

It’s probably just as well; the redhead finds _I love you_ ready and waiting on the tip of his tongue.

 

*


End file.
